


Nothing But Time

by Tres13



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Blood, Incest, M/M, Slash, Wibbly-Wobbly Timey-Wimey Stuff, slightly AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 02:48:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tres13/pseuds/Tres13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say time cures all wounds, but when Time itself is the problem, what’s a Strider to do?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ((This fic departs from the canon storyline on account of how I started writing it before several key elements of the plot were revealed. Such is the craft. In any case, I hope you enjoy the fic!))

You are Dirk Strider, and there is a man on your couch.  
  
He’s been there for a few days now, and to be honest, you aren’t really sure what to do about it. How he got there is…something you’re still not crystal clear on. All you know is, if you were the sort to casually relate strange and interesting anecdotes to people, this would be one for posterity.  
  
You were having breakfast and watching something on TV that you don’t remember now when it happened. One minute everything was going “as usual,” and the next, boom, a body falls out of _abso-fucking-lutely nowhere_ and into your lap. Normally you are the absolute embodiment of stoicism, but in this case, you are ashamed to say you freaked the fuck out. Seriously, all the cool, out the window, and the fact that you had every right to react that way under the circumstances doesn’t take the sting of lost dignity away.

  
  
After your heart rate dropped back to acceptable levels, you managed to shove your way out from under the person-sized whatever and discovered that yes, it was in fact a person, and yes, it was alive. Barely. You can still remember the way your stomach clenched at the sight of all that blood. You’ve seen blood, of course, but never that much, never all on one human being.  
  
He only stirred once, coughing weakly and splattering himself with more red before rasping out two words: “don’t go.” You’re pretty sure he wasn’t talking to you, but you had nowhere else to be, so you stayed. Anyway, there was no way you were going to let a guy die in your living room. That kind of thing just isn’t kosher.  
  
So now, there’s this half-dead dude on your couch, and he’s as bandaged up as you could make him, and while it’s shallow he’s at least still breathing. Beyond checking every hour or so to make sure that’s still the case, there isn’t much you can do. All you can do now is wait for him to wake up.  
  
You stare down at him, which is something you’ve been doing a lot of since he “arrived.” He looks…really familiar. You’re positive you’ve never met this man before, but something in you insists that you know him. It’s that feeling that compels you to study him, search for clues in the ashen planes of his face.  
  
Oh, yes, he’s definitely pale, nearly white from blood loss and whatever trauma brought him here. His hair is light blond like yours, what you can see of it under the dried, caked blood. He’s dressed in this weird-ass outfit, like some kind of Ren-Fair getup. He had a broken sword with him when he landed, which you’ve carefully propped against the farthest wall; you don’t fancy an attempt on your life if your houseguest wakes up in a shitty mood. He also had a pair of sweet shades on him; those you’ve laid on the coffee table, even pushing aside some of your puppets to make room, because shades that nice deserve respect. With all that blood still soaked into his clothes, he looks like something tried to eat him. Other than that, he’s just a guy, early-to-mid twenties, not too bad on the eyes. And so goddamned _familiar_.  
  
You’re so busy staring that at first you don’t realize that his breathing has stopped. When that bit of crucial information does penetrate your brain, you immediately drop to your knees next to the couch and check for a heartbeat…which isn’t there.  
  
Your initial thought is _Ohshit, I killed a man_ , because, in hindsight, you should have called for an ambulance as soon as you realized the person who just fell from the sky was bleeding out. But you hate hospitals, and you don’t trust doctors, so you neglected to dial those three numbers, and now this dude is _dead_ and it’s your fault. _Holy fucking shit._  
  
Then you hear it, as if from a long way off: the deep, ominous sound of an old, enormous clock chiming the hour. The sound is so distant, and fades so fast, that you almost think you imagined it. And then the dead guy sits up with a gasp, and you jerk back so fast you fall smack on your ass, narrowly escaping braining yourself on the edge of the coffee table in the process. Way to go, man. Way to _go_.  
  
“Sweet Zombie Jesus what the fucking FUCK,” you snap, because after a three-day-long vigil over your unexpected guest your nerves are near the breaking point, damnit, and if you want to cuss it out of your system than you are going to fucking do that. Dead Guy doesn’t like your mouth, he can just get over it.  
  
Dead Guy quickly turns toward the sound of your voice, and for a moment you just stare at each other like retarded animals caught in the high-beams. His eyes are ridiculous; they’re so _red_ , they look like rubies, and they almost seem to burn you, they’re so intense. He’s got this look on his face, like shock and desperation and anger and grief and you don’t even _know_ , because there’s too much there all at once for you to make out what exactly you’re seeing. The anger fades faster than the rest, which is good because you suddenly aren’t all that comfortable with the idea of pissing this guy off.  
  
Then things get surreal. He’s still staring at you, and then out of nowhere he reaches out, and you aren’t sure whether to protest or what, but then he stops with his hand barely an inch from your face like he’s afraid to touch you. There’s something else in his expression now, a kind of recognition; he knows you somehow, just like you know him, though from the look of things he actually knows _how_ he knows you, whereas you are still basically in the dark about that.  
  
But then it’s like someone flipped a switch, and all that emotion in his face just—goes away. He’s utterly inscrutable all of a sudden, and you know what he did, because you do it all the time: he’s walled himself off, shoved all those feelings into a box in the back of his heart and turned the motherfucking key. He takes back his hand, and picks up the shades on the coffee table. When he puts them on it’s as though he’s not even a real person anymore; he’s that much more of a mystery. He’s…really fucking cool, and it pains you to admit that someone might be more so than you, but damn. Just…damn.  
  
“You bled all over my couch, dude,” you tell him, because at this point you have to say _something_.  
  
He gives this little, humorless snort. “Sorry about that. When am I?”  
  
“You’re in my house.”  
  
“No,” he says, and looks at you square on. “ _When_ am I? What year is it?”  
  
Shit, you are having flashbacks to _Terminator_ ; is this guy for real? But you tell him, and his brow wrinkles a bit as he processes that.  
  
“That doesn’t make any sense,” he murmurs, presumably to himself. He looks at you again, and you get this prickly feeling on the back of your neck from the way he examines you behind those dark glasses. “How old are you?”  
  
Okay, weird. But you suppose it’s a harmless enough question. “Sixteen.”  
  
“Sixteen,” he repeats, like he can’t quite believe it. He brings a hand up to run it through his hair, and you realize he’s just barely shaking. He grins this strange, painful little grin. “Jesus. You’re so _young_.”  
  
“Old enough,” you retort. You only just refrain from tacking “asshole” onto that sentence. He’s kind of starting to creep you out, which, really, he should have been doing from the moment he came back from the dead, and _oh, yeah_ , he actually did that, didn’t he? You wonder if that makes him a vampire or something. You’re sure Jake would get a kick out of that, being the extreme movie buff that he is. You scowl when you catch yourself thinking about Jake; you’ve been trying not to do that lately.  
  
“I have to go,” Previously Dead Guy announces, and pushes himself up off the couch. He wobbles a tiny bit, then steadies himself and…stands there. “Shit,” he mutters under his breath.  
  
“I take it something is supposed to be happening,” you surmise.  
  
Ooh, _that_ was a look for sure. Rather than dish out any retaliation, however, he simply heaves an annoyed sigh. “Bastard sent me fucking _sideways_. I’m not sure how your timeline relates to mine, so I can’t orient myself. This could take a while to figure out.”  
  
Your eyebrows climb your forehead a few, scant centimeters. “Holy fuck,” you drawl, “you really are the douchebag from _Terminator_. You just brought motherfucking time shenanigans into my goddamned living room.”  
  
“Glad you understand. And watch your mouth; who taught you that trash?”  
  
“Your mother.”  
  
He cuffs you lightly across the head, and shock ripples through you like lightning. Not because he hit you. Because you _couldn’t dodge_. You saw the move coming; you simply weren’t fast enough to avoid it. You’re _never_ not fast enough; being fast is your _thing_. And yet, you didn’t even have time to flash step before he treated your head to a world class familial cuffing that makes you think of dads or older brothers or that really cool male cousin who sometimes shows up at the kind of Christmas parties you’ve never been to. You’re actually _flustered_ , for chrissakes, not that you’d ever let on.  
  
And then he has to go and make the moment even more awkward for you. He grins that hells-of-weird grin again and _ruffles your hair_. “You’re not wearing a hat.”  
  
You slap his hand away, inexplicably irritated at the overly-fucking-friendly treatment, and barely managing not to show it on your face. “I don’t wear hats.” Which is essentially true. You _don’t_ wear hats, though you really dig them. It has more to do with how long it takes you to get your hair to this level of awesomeness every morning than it does with the hats themselves, though. Messing with perfection like that would just be criminal, no matter how cool the lid in question might be.  
  
“Huh,” Previously Dead Guy remarks, in response to your “no hats” comment. His expression resets to neutral. “I’m Dave,” he tells you.  
  
“Dirk,” you grudgingly reply, because it wouldn’t be very awesome of you not to give your name after he went to the trouble of offering his own.  
  
“I’m gonna need to crash here until I sort out the Continuum,” he says. “Hope that’s cool.”  
  
You could refuse. You could tell him to take a hike and cart his freaky time-traveling issues along with him. But you know what would happen. You’d be up all night thinking about him, wondering where he came from, wondering what he knows about you that you don’t. Wondering how he got so damn _fast_. So instead of kicking him out, you just nod, ever-so-slightly, and just like that the deal is sealed.  
  
Looks like there’s going to be a man on your couch for a while yet.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Dirk discovers the meaning of catharsis, and Dave completely loathes Li'l Cal.

You show Dave around the house the next morning, granting him the official tour since he’s going to be hanging around a while. He doesn’t seem to have much of an opinion on anything, at least until he sees your room. He freezes in the doorway, and his jaw clenches so hard you can practically hear his teeth creaking. You’re not sure whether he’s freaking out or what, though, because those shades don’t give much away.  
  
Finally, he speaks. “Holy shit. And all this time I thought it was just irony. This…I don’t know what it fucking is, but this is not irony.”  
  
“Sure it is,” you reply, shrugging a little. “Everything you see before you is a perfect salute to the ironic forces in this universe; that is, naturally, the reason why I unironically love it.”  
  
He glances at you in what you assume is disbelief. Again with the shades, making him so damn unreadable. Not that you’re one to talk, of course. “So, basically, you love this insanely disturbing shit unironically simply _because_ it’s ironic? Wouldn’t you genuinely loving it make it unironic too, though?”  
  
“That’s where you fail to understand the genius of it,” you tell him. “The very act of loving this stuff unironically is in itself ironic, and therefore, shut the hell up and get your foot off my Hella Jeff plush.”  
  
He does, very quickly in fact, and the plush squeaks as though in relief. Dave takes a few, cautious steps into your Den of Irony, his body language vaguely tense, like he expects some kind of horrible, cushy monster to rear up out of the puppet pile and bite him on the ass. Then, he spots Li’l Cal.  
  
“HolymotherofGOD what is that fucking demon puppet doing here,” he spits, and actually reaches for his sword, of all things.  
  
If it wouldn’t be so uncool, you’d be tempted to snicker. You manage to not even crack a smile, but it’s more difficult than it normally would be. “Cal? What’s your deal, man, Cal is freaking sweet.”  
  
“No,” Dave states in an extremely solemn tone. “No, he is not.” He doesn’t say anything else about Cal, just warily turns away from the puppet to examine the rest of the room. After only a moment, though, he’s had enough, and exits the room at a surprisingly dignified pace. You silently congratulate him on regaining his poker face so quickly. “I don’t know why I thought that would be any less horrifying. That _you_ would be. Must be the time travel; it does things to your head, like fill it with baseless optimism.”  
  
You frown at his back as he makes his way back toward the living room. There he goes again, talking like he knows you, or knew you, more like. You try to convince yourself that you don’t really give a shit, but deep down, it really bothers you. You just can’t shake that feeling that something big is looming over you both, some huge, undefined “ _Happened_ ” that you can’t remember. It pisses you off. It makes Dave more of a mystery than he even needs to be, and you’re torn between how unaccountably _cool_ that makes him, and how much it also sort of makes you want to punch him in the face.  
  
You become conscious of the sound of your cell ringing, and head leisurely to the living room to answer it, only to find that your houseguest already has. “Somebody named Jake English,” Dave says, and holds out the phone to you.  
  
You stare at the mobile device like it’s a venomous snake, but then reach out and take it—and immediately push the “End Call” button. Dave arches a pale eyebrow at you, but doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to, because you know what it looks like, which is exactly like what it is. You know what English probably said as soon as he mistook Dave answering the phone for you, which of course he would because it’s your fucking phone. And you know Dave probably let him babble for a bit before calmly interrupting him with a “and who should I say is calling to deliver this heartfelt deluge of regret” or whatever, because that’s what you would do if you were someone like him. You briefly wonder why you know that, and then dismiss the question entirely as unimportant.  
  
“Girl troubles,” you grunt, and toss your cell onto the couch. “Forget about it.”  
  
He lets out a short laugh that conveys exactly how not-funny the situation is. You find that you kind of appreciate that. “Whatever. It’s none of my business.” He pauses, and then goes ahead and makes it his business anyway. “He kept saying he was sorry.”  
  
“I know. He’s been saying it for weeks.” Doesn’t make anything hurt a damn bit less, though.  
  
Dave does not ask if you “want to talk about it.” All he does is nod, like he totally gets it, which hell, maybe he does. Maybe he confessed to some arrow-straight sonofabitch too, and maybe he got his heart ripped out by the No-Homo routine, and maybe the guy who destroyed him spent weeks trying to apologize and asking if Dave could please forgive him so they could at least still be palhonchos.  
  
You feel sick all of a sudden, and meander into the kitchen for some water or something to quiet the hurricane whipping up inside your stomach. You’re still staring blankly at the glass in your hand when he walks in, and comes to stand next to you, one hip resting against the counter and arms folded loosely across his chest.  
  
“You’re better off,” he says at last, and you slide him a narrow-eyed glare from behind your own wickedly pointy shades.  
  
“You don’t know a damn thing about me,” you retort, even though you’re pretty sure that’s a lie. Somehow.  
  
“That’s right,” he agrees (humoring you, the bastard). “Not a damn thing.” Then he goddamn _smirks_ at you. “But I know what tragic, teenage pining looks like, even on a ‘coolkid’ like you.”  
  
The water glass shatters on your kitchen floor, and you have him by the shirt and his hand is tight around your wrist, and for a long, tense moment you just glare at him. You can just barely see his eyes through his dark glasses, and he’s not smirking anymore. “Careful,” he tells you, just that one word, quiet and without inflection.  
  
You let go of him, but you don’t step back. You’re not a guy who steps back from anyone, ever. Turns out, you don’t need to be. The moment you release the brutal grip on his shirt, he’s gone, and you’re left staring at a Post-It Note on your kitchen counter. _You and me, the roof, NOW,_ it says. _We’re doing this._  
  
Pompous asshole. But you aren’t a guy to turn down challenges either.  
  
He’s waiting for you with that broken sword of his already in hand, and you heft your Unbreakable Katana and search him for an opening. The instant you see one, you go for it; he blocks you at the last second, and forces you back with a surprisingly powerful shove. That shitty-looking sword shouldn’t even still be _half_ in one piece after your strike, but it is. And Dave is strong, more so than you think a guy who recently came back from the dead should be. Then again, he doesn’t really look like he used to be dead; the blood vanished from his clothes yesterday when he revived, and he moves like whatever wounds he sustained before that are gone too.  
  
You see another small crack in his defenses, and attack again, but he’s too crazy fast, and blocks you a second time. The third, fourth, and fifth slashes yield similar results. By the hundredth, you realize he’s been toying with you. All those “openings” you saw were just bait, and like an utter tool you took it every time. You’re furious at him for taunting you. You’re furious at yourself for falling for it. You’re…you’re…you’re actually starting to enjoy this.  
  
Your lungs heave, fighting to pull in air as you push yourself to greater and greater speeds, and there’s a fine patina of sweat on your skin. Your heart is beating faster and harder than you can ever remember it doing. The katana actually feels heavy in your hands, and your shoulders and arms and legs and _everything_ are starting to burn with exertion. Dave is more than a challenge for you; he’s _better_ than you, and knowing that gives you an odd little thrill. This isn’t like any sparring match you’ve ever had, with robots or otherwise. This is something entirely new, and it feels like you’ve been waiting a long fucking time for it to happen.  
  
And then…Dave goes on the offensive.  
  
You’re not even sure where the final blow comes from, only that by that time your arms are shaking too badly to block or parry. Your sword flies out of your hand to bury itself in the roof several feet away, and then your legs give out for good measure. You’ve never gone down like this before, but there’s the gritty surface of the roof under your hands, and a sting in your knees that definitely feels like defeat. You’re not sure at what moment Dave’s broken sword turned itself into an unbroken one, but the point on the end of it is inches from your left eye, and you lost your shades sometime in the chaos of last hour or so, and you have never felt so vulnerable or so galvanized in your life. There’s this electricity racing through you, this insane energy that makes you want to keep fighting, even as common sense tells you your ass has been thoroughly kicked by a guy in Renaissance pajamas. It’s over, and you’re disappointed because you don’t _want_ it to be, you want to keep going forever, in spite of the pain, in spite of your exhaustion, in spite of everything.  
  
To your satisfaction, Dave’s looking a little worse for wear too, though he’s not nearly as wrecked as you. He still has his shades, but they’re sitting sort of crooked, and he’s breathing hard. Under other circumstances you’d be pissed about that being the extent of your effect on him, but right now you are too psyched about what just happened to be angry. It’s like the fight made you high or something; you feel like laughing out loud, and you never feel like doing that. You’re not sure what would happen if you gave in to that impulse, so you don’t, but the urge exists all the same. There’s sweat stinging your eyes, and you refuse to think that it might be anything else.  
  
You feel a little relieved. A little lighter. You realize that maybe that was the whole point.  
  
Dave holds out his hand, and you consider taking it. In the end, though, you climb to your feet without him, because you have to draw the line somewhere, for your dignity’s sake. You get the feeling he understands. He hands you your shades (you aren’t sure when he picked them up), and tousles your hair again, and you growl at him even though your hair was already ruined anyway, and he just smirks and disappears off the roof. You shake your head at the sheer nerve of this man, and follow him back into the house.  
  
You have plenty of time to think while you take one of your legendarily-long showers, which you need after all that business on the roof. Basically, it amounts to this: you are starting to really, genuinely, unironically like Dave. He’s been under your roof (and on it) for only about twenty-four hours, but you already know a few things about him. He’s damn weird, for one thing, with his broken sword that turns into a whole sword when he’s using it, and his time-travel bullshit which is somehow true, and his apparent extreme loathing for Li’l Cal. He’s interesting in ways few people are. He’s kind of infuriating, but in a different way from certain friends of yours, which is oddly refreshing. He’s intriguing because you _don’t_ know that much about him. He’s also kind of hot.  
  
You mentally punch yourself in the brain for that last one, because you are absolutely not, EVER, going to go there. You have enough troubles in that department as is, damn it, and there is no way in this lifetime or any other that you are going to add another unobtainable bastard to your list of woes. _Ever_ , understand? Good. You are glad you and your brain concur on this. All is now well.  
  
Where were you? Oh, right: so, yeah, you kind of like Dave, in spite of his being weird and infuriating (and hot—no, shut up, brain, gog, you thought you had a fucking _agreement_ here), and all things considered you wouldn’t mind getting to know the guy some more. Which you guess is completely doable, because he’s supposedly going to be a while “figuring out the Continuum.” It’ll be nice having someone else in the house for a change. Lord knows your Hollywood superstar bro is never around to talk to. And maybe Dave can distract you from other things that you’d rather not think about. The fight on the roof made you forget for a while, and even feel a little better about shit afterwards, so the distraction aspect looks promising.  
  
It’s while you’re in front of the bathroom mirror, fixing your hair, that a few additional things about Dave occur to you.  
  
He’s like you. A _lot_ like you, in fact. He has very pale hair, just like you. He has intense, red eyes, which are actually very similar to yours. He rocks a pair of shades like a fucking boss, same as you do. He has that air of aloofness that you’ve striven long years to achieve. He has the faint accent which might implicate certain parts of the Southwest. You even hold yourselves the same, with a subtle, underlying message of “Come at me, bro.” His hatred for puppets aside, he’s practically your clone. Your grown-up, alternate timeline clone.  
  
For half an instant, you come to the wrong conclusion. But you quickly push the notion aside; he’s not you. You’re similar, but you’re way too different for him to be your future self. It would explain the feeling of familiarity, and maybe why he’s such a badass, but there are too many things which render that theory impossible. He doesn’t even wear hats, for crying out loud, and you’re determined to wear hats someday, when they actually fit right, and when you don’t care as much about your hair.  
  
So, if he’s not future-you…who _is_ he? It’s going to bother you even more now that you’ve realized how alike the two of you are. If this were _Terminator_ for real, he’d be your dad from the future or something, but you sincerely doubt this is the case. Maybe he’s your future son? The thought gives you chills, namely because you just thought of him as attractive, which if he _is_ your spawn from a time not yet arrived, is pretty sick, and you don’t mean the good kind of sick. It also bothers the fuck out of you because having a son would mean that your junk at some point made contact with the forbidden country of a female, which to you feels nastier than the idea of considering your future-brat “hot.” You briefly wonder what sort of person that makes you, and then decide you don’t care. Girls are smelly, and that’s really all there is to say on the matter.  
  
In the end, you figure that the only way to find out Dave’s relation to you is to ask him. You don’t necessarily like having to be so direct, but you can’t think of any way to get the information out of him by being as subtle as you usually are. Dropping extremely vague hints until he tells you seems less like your typical aloof style and more like a copout, and you don’t want to come off as a side-stepping bitch.  
  
You confront him in the living room. He’s watching TV, but when you come to stand between him and the screen he gives you his full attention. Nice of him, that, but it’s not getting him off the hook.  
  
“Who are you, really?” you demand, and then kick yourself internally, because that line was pretty cliché. No time to correct, though, so you just cross your arms and wait.  
  
“I’m Dave,” he replies. “I thought we covered that yesterday. My bad.”  
  
The average teenager would probably commit some kind of violence on him for being a condescending asshat, but luckily, you have more restraint than that. “I know your name, dipshit. I meant _who_ are you, as in, ‘who are you in relation to me, and why do I give a fuck?’”  
  
He leans forward slightly, his face a mask of utter seriousness. You feel yourself tense, just a little.  
  
“Dirk….” he says, “ _I am your father._ ”  
  
You kick him in the kneecap. Hard.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No summary for you. Go read. XD

It’s been days and Dave is still around, and he still won’t tell you anything, and you think you ought to be angrier about it, but the thing is…he’s actually damn decent company, and part of you wonders if knowing his true identity is actually all that important in light of this fact. He’s really grown on you, and you’re so used to having him around now that you’re starting to forget what life was like when he wasn’t. Which is stupid, you remind yourself as often as you can stand to, because he has some all-important “mission” to complete as soon as his Time shit is working again, and he’s _going to leave_. And while you’re not going to weep profusely and wave a silky handkerchief as he rides off into the sunset, you _are_ going to miss him. That being the case, you try not to think too hard about his inevitable departure, and just go about your business as usual.  
  
It’s around noon, and you stroll into the kitchen with the intent to make yourself a sandwich, and instead find yourself blinking in surprise at the spectacle of Dave with your sparring bot in a headlock.  
  
“Hey,” your houseguest greets you casually.  
  
“Get him off me,” A.R. says in his hollow, tinny-sounding parody of your voice.

  
  
You resist the urge to facepalm. “How could you let this happen,” you accuse the robot version of yourself. “I built you to be unstoppable.” You check the current settings for his Difficulty Mode using the digital interface in your shades, and resist the face-palming urge even harder. “You’re not even on Novice Mode, what the actual fuck.”  
  
“Don’t be too hard on him,” Dave suggests. “He mistook me for an intruder.”  
  
That is _so_ not even what you are irritated about, and the smug bastard knows it. “Unhand my robot double,” you tell him. “He and I need to have a fucking discussion.”  
  
Dave lets go, and A.R. follows you out of the kitchen. You round on the robot as soon as you’re certain you’re out of Dave’s earshot. “What are you doing back here?”  
  
“It seems English was uncomfortable with me around, considering the current state of affairs.”  
  
Of course he would be, you realize, and hate yourself a little for not taking that into account earlier. You programmed your Auto Responder to make subtle overtures towards Jake, after all, in the hope that he’d eventually get the hint, and even if he’s stopped doing that, the robot’s mere presence no doubt still bothers Jake to no end.  
  
“What happens now,” A.R. queries. “Are you going to disassemble this thing?” He taps his metal chest to indicate his current housing. “The loss of mobility would suck and all, but it’s not like it makes that much difference to me in the end.”  
  
“Actually, I’m wondering if there’s much reason for you to even exist anymore,” you admit. “I was thinking the A.I. experiment may have run its course, and I should discontinue your program entirely.”  
  
He nods stiffly, like he was expecting something along those lines. Which, since he’s sort of you, he probably did. “I can’t say as I’m thrilled to hear that, but I’m not going to have histrionics about it.”  
  
“Thanks, I appreciate that.” You consider whether to just get it over with now, since it’s already out there. It could be awkward to have him around, knowing you’re just going to deactivate him later. Then again, he has years of data stored in him, which is going to take you days, if not weeks, to transfer to disc. It just seems like more trouble than it’s worth at the moment, so you decide to wait. “Go perform some self-maintenance or something. I need a goddamned sandwich.”  
  
You leave him to his own devices, and head back to the kitchen. Dave is sitting at the table with an orange soda, and he lifts a hand in greeting as you enter the room. “He doesn’t react as quickly as you,” the man remarks.  
  
Unexpectedly flattered, you nonetheless have to defend your creation. “He’s artificial intelligence,” you reply. “He’s running on software, not instinct. He learns, though; next time he won’t be as easy to beat.”  
  
He shouldn’t have been so easy to beat in the first place, but you suppose the elements of surprise and unfamiliarity are acceptable excuses. This time.  
  
A.R. makes another appearance sometime during your second ham-and-cheese. He sits in a chair across from Dave and _stares_ at him without moving or speaking; he’s analyzing the newcomer, as well as deliberately testing him to see how uncomfortable he’ll get after being stared at for an awkward stretch of time. He’s also programmed to get on peoples’ nerves, push them to the breaking point, and take advantage of their weaknesses. You wonder how effective the psychological warfare will be against someone like Dave.  
  
Not very, it appears. Dave stares calmly back, occasionally taking a sip from his soda. You lean against a counter and watch them, and wait for one of them to break the stalemate.  
  
As it turns out, A.R. is the first to fold. “It seems I can’t elicit a reaction of discomfort or anxiety from you this way.”  
  
“Nope,” Dave confirms. “A friend of mine makes it her sick hobby to pick peoples’ brains, and she’s preposterously good at it. After dealing with her for so long, there isn’t much that makes me sweat.”  
  
“Huh,” says your robot, which isn’t a very robot-like thing to say, but switching back and forth between cold, unfeeling logic and painfully human modes of expression is, after all, part of his charm.  
  
After that they just sort of chat for a while, Dave asking questions about A.R.’s programming and battle aptitudes and other things of that nature, and the robot asking questions about Dave’s time-traveling capabilities and music preferences and whatnot. They’re downright chummy with one another after a while. It’s making you feel a bit like the third wheel, so to speak, so after listening to them talk for several minutes, you decide to go occupy yourself in your room.  
  
You spend the next half an hour messing around with your modus and doing what amounts to cleaning your room, which is really just shifting the piles of junk you have lying around into different spots. Eventually there’s nothing else you feel like doing, so you just have a seat on your bed and soak up the boredom. There’s this prickling feeling of frustration inside of you, and it takes you a minute or two to recognize it. When you do, it takes you a few minutes more to accept it for what it is. You’re jealous, plain and simple. Dave is paying attention to someone else for a change, and it _bothers you_.  
  
This is not good. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite thing from good. You aren’t supposed to get attached, remember? He’s going to take the Time Train right out of your life sometime in the undetermined future, and you’ve already resolved that there will be no maidenly sobbing or wringing of hands when this happens. Yet here you are, chafing over the fact that he’s talking to your Auto Responder instead of hanging out with you, and you really need to slap yourself before you misplace any more of your goddamned manly pride.  
  
Besides, you tell yourself, it’s not like you feel actual feelings for Dave. It’s just the dreaded Rebound, overflow from being rejected by the guy you had the hots for. Sure, he’s cool, and funny in a deadpan way that gels nicely with your own sense of humor, and sure he’s completely badass, and sparring with him makes you feel totally alive in ways you never have, and okay, yeah, he’s seriously attractive, and yeah, he’s one of maybe two people on this earth that really seem to _get_ you, but…er…jesus fuck you have it bad, don’t you. Shit.  
  
You fail to resist the urge to face-palm this time. You’re pretty sure that’s going to leave a mark.  
  
All right, so the question now is obviously, “what are you going to do about it?” Common sense says “nothing,” but when has your life—or that of any other adolescent—ever made sense? Still, just knowing you can’t do “nothing” doesn’t help you decide what you _should_ do.  
  
It’s while you’re chasing possible solutions around in your brain that A.R. walks in and shuts the door behind him. “He’s interesting, for a human. Did you know that you two share the same, rare form of partial albinism? It’s more evident in him than in you, though, what with him having completely red eyes. Fucking _red_ ; Christ. He showed me for a second. Just from the physiological evidence, I’ve calculated that there’s at least an eighty-two-point-two-five percent chance that you’re related somehow.”  
  
“Yeah,” you reply, rather curtly. “I figured. He’s probably my future son, or some shit.”  
  
“I doubt that. Partial albinism isn’t typically passed from parent to offspring, though it does sometimes appear in siblings.”  
  
“I have an older bro; Dave isn’t him.” Dave is way better company, for one thing. He listens almost as well as Li’l Cal.  
  
A.R. shrugs. “Whatever you say, dude.”  
  
There’s a long moment of heavy, oppressive silence that feels a little like being smothered by the underside of a particularly bloody-minded whale. Then, finally, your robot exhibits typical thirteen-year-old impatience.  
  
“So?” he prompts.  
  
You glare at him with a possibly unwarranted amount of displeasure. “So what?”  
  
“So, what are you going to do about the mysterious, time-traveling hottie?”  
  
It shouldn’t even surprise you anymore when he picks up on your thought process so easily. “There’s nothing to do,” you mutter. “He’s probably leaving soon.”  
  
“It seems you have a bad habit of falling for unobtainable bastards.”  
  
 _You think so?_ you spit in your mind, but don’t say it, because you’d rather stab yourself in the foot than admit how much this is getting to you, even to a robot who is basically you. Maybe especially to a robot-you.  
  
A.R. cocks his head slightly, an oddly organic gesture, but nonetheless a deliberate one. “You know what I would do?”  
  
“I don’t care what you would do.”  
  
He ignores you. “I would stop being an utter pansy and take a fucking chance. And since it’s what I would do, theoretically that means it’s what you would do too. If I were capable of the human emotion called ‘hope,’ I would hope that theory proves correct.”  
  
He’s right, damn him to scrapyard hell. You’re Dirk-Fucking-Strider, and you don’t sit on your ass in your room and mope when there’s a sexy blond in your kitchen. If he’s gone tomorrow, you’ll get over it. Right now, it’s time to go get what you want.  
  
“Take a walk,” you tell A.R., and for once, he obeys directly. He’s out the window and gone, and you are now on your own.  
  
Your bravado fades a smidge once you reach the living room, and spy the aforementioned sexy blond sitting on your couch. There are several ways you could approach this, but none seem more appropriate than to “just go for it,” so that is precisely what you do.  
  
He looks up when you approach, and it’s hard to tell behind the shades, but you think he narrows his eyes at you. The thought that maybe he’s guessed your intentions almost makes you hesitate, but retreat isn’t an option here, so you brace your hand against the back of the couch and lean down and—and he stops you with a hand against your chest.  
  
“Don’t,” he says, and it’s not angry or anything, in fact you’d almost have to qualify it as _regretful_ , but for some reason that only hurts worse.  
  
“Why,” you challenge, beyond pissed that you only just realized you wanted this, and already he’s rejecting you, the complete _asshole_.  
  
He pushes you back a little, and you stubbornly make him work for it, but then he’s sitting up straighter and looking you square in the eyes. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”  
  
 _God_ , you want to hit him; no one else has ever been able to enrage you like this. “The fuck I don’t, I get it, you have to leave. I don’t give a shit.”  
  
Dave sighs. “I don’t have to _leave_ ,” he tells you quietly. “I have to _die_.”  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Yes, I'm aware that the Brobot exploded. But for the sake of the fic, let's ignore that, shall we?))


	4. Chapter 4

For a long, long moment, all you can do is stare. The words don’t make sense, no matter how many times you replay them in your mind. The anger has all drained out of you, replaced by incredulity. Finally, your tongue decides to start working again. “I think…you’d better explain that one.”  
  
He frowns at you, but then nods. The reluctance to speak is practically a visible aura around him, yet speak he does. “I didn’t want to have to explain it. Hell, I don’t completely understand it myself, or I wouldn’t still be here.” You’re not sure what sort of look is on your face right now, but it makes the crease between his eyebrows deepen. “Not that I’m saying I want to go, so don’t take it like that.”  
  
You will take it any damn way you please, but since you want to hear this, you hold your tongue. Dave takes a second to rearrange his thoughts, and continues.  
  
“I—that is, me from the past—made a mistake. The thing is, three years is a long time to spend on an asteroid with a handful of weirdos and trolls, with nothing to do but wonder if you’re all going to die. So past-me decided, ‘why not find out?’ We’re the Knight of Time, after all, so a peek at the future should be cake. Just a quick look, to see how things turn out. Just to make sure we’re not riding that asteroid straight to our deaths.”  
  
He pauses, breathes out slowly, like he’s bracing himself. “The future isn’t my thing, though. The past is. I mean, if I mess around with my powers enough I _can_ access the future, but doing that is like breaking the rules, and I can’t control it very well. When past-me went to look at the future, he jumped too far ahead. He created a doomed timeline, and a version of Jack Noir even stronger than his universe’s was waiting when he showed up. The future that past-me arrived in was one where we’d all been fighting Jack for a long, long time. Half the universe was dead by the time past-me showed up. So were most of the people I know. Jack killed Aradia first; her Time powers were more versatile than mine, so she was one of the biggest threats. Jade escaped the initial massacre, since he still couldn’t bring himself to murder her. John and Karkat tried to fight him, but Jack eventually killed them too, and then Gamzee and Terezi just for the hell of it. Sollux killed himself trying to bring a star down on top of Jack with his mind powers. Jade, Rose, Kanaya and I got away for several years, using Rose’s Seer abilities and Jade’s Space powers to avoid Jack, but he was still on our trail. Past-me accidentally led him right to our hiding place, and Jack killed him there in front of us.”  
  
Dave’s hands are clenched into fists, and you can see he’s having trouble with the next part. “He tore a hole in Kanaya the size of a fucking watermelon, and left her to bleed out while he turned on me and Rose. Jade tried to stop him, but he’d had a long time to get over the part of him that didn’t want her dead. He…shit, he cut her down with that fucking sword of his. He killed Rose with the same damn sword. Then he came after me. I knew I couldn’t beat him even before he ripped me open, but if I could go back in time and stop my retarded past self from trying to fucking _cheat_ , I knew I could at least keep it all from happening again. So I picked my wounded ass up and ran, or tried to. Jack did something, I think, and instead of going straight back, I went sideways, and instead of ending up where my past self is, I wound up here with you. I don’t know what he did, but I have to figure it out. I have to go back and warn myself not to do what the other past-me did.”  
  
Major confusion aside, you think you at least understand his sense of urgency. “But how does that explain why you have to die?”  
  
“Because,” he explains, like it’s obvious, “all doomed timelines die. That’s why they’re called ‘doomed.’ It’s like this: every life or death decision presents you with two choices, and creates two possible outcomes, a less favorable outcome and a more favorable one. In the less favorable scenario, everybody dies. It’s how Space-Time balances itself. Otherwise, there’d be alternate timelines out the wazoo. Basically, as soon as I leave here and reenter the Alpha timeline, I’ll be marked for death, because I won’t belong there.”  
  
“Then don’t go.”  
  
“I have to. I have to warn Past-Dave; otherwise he’ll just keep on creating doomed timelines. The more favorable outcome doesn’t happen until I complete the time loop and create it, by telling myself which path _not_ to choose.”  
  
“All right, but look,” you reason, “How do you know this isn’t the Alpha timeline? Maybe past-you is the one who went sideways first, and this is actually where you’re supposed to be.”  
  
“If it was, I’d already be dead. Probably; I’m not sure how it works. Look, it doesn’t matter. What’s important here is that _your_ time isn’t the one I was trying to get to; past-me isn’t here, so I can’t undo anything.”  
  
You sit down next to him, the beginning of a headache making itself known. This shit is complicated, but you’re doing your best to absorb it. “Okay, so you’re saying that ‘you’ from your past—linearly speaking—is the one who fucked up. He jumped too far ahead, and created the doomed timeline you come from. For now, I’m not even going to fucking address how that’s possible. The point is, you tried to jump straight back, but this Jack character did something to send you sideways instead, into my timeline, which is theoretically a completely separate timeline from yours. Which would make this an alternate timeline, but possibly not a doomed one, because you’re still alive. Why _are_ you still alive, by the way? You croaked on my couch earlier, then popped up again like Night of the Living Dave.”  
  
“God Tier. I’m basically immortal as long as my death isn’t Just or Heroic. Absconding like a bitch kind of made it neither, I guess.”  
  
“Right. So now, you have to figure out how to do the sideways thing, but in reverse, and then go far enough back to warn yourself not to be a total fuckup.”  
  
“Yup. That’s the gist of it.”  
  
“And you’re going to die as soon as you accomplish this, which is why you won’t let me kiss you.”  
  
What you can see of his face looks pained. “You don’t get it, do you? How much it kills me that I can’t do that. You haven’t got a clue who you are to me.”  
  
“And who the hell’s that?” you shoot back. “I know who I fucking am, and apparently, so do you. There’s a Dirk in your timeline too, right?”  
  
“No,” he murmurs. “There isn’t. He died fighting Jack when I was thirteen.”  
  
 _Thirteen?_ You stare at him, more than a little bewildered. “Just for the sake of frivolity, let’s say you’ve completely lost me with that one. You’re what, twenty-six? That would’ve happened thirteen years ago; I would’ve been three years old.”  
  
“You’re missing something, though,” Dave informs you. He smiles wryly. “When I was thirteen, _you_ were the one who was an adult. In my timeline, you were my older brother.”  
  
A lot of things get going in your head at once. First, an older version of you got his ass kicked, which is kind of humiliating; you always hoped you’d be more awesome than that. Second, you’ve developed Feelings for somebody whom you now know is your brother. Third, that brother whom you have Feelings for is going to go sacrifice himself to the greater good, and there’s nothing you can do or say to stop him. It’s official: your life is more fucked up than the movies.  
  
You remember what you were thinking earlier, about Dave having to leave, and you being determined not to care about what the future holds, because Right Now is more important. Now that you know he’s not just leaving, but actually going off to die, and now that you know you’re somehow his older brother, and now that he’s pretty much admitted that he wants you too…you find that all of that is still true.  
  
Dave stiffens in shock when you abruptly situate yourself on top of him. “What are—no, shit, I just told you why I can’t do this!”  
  
“Shut your fucking mouth,” you growl, and proceed to shut it for him.  
  
He resists for all of five seconds. Then his willpower crumbles, and his hands come around your waist, and his mouth is hot and eager on yours, and the incest thing should squick the hell out of you, but it is somehow not even a _thing_ because you want him in spite of everything that says you shouldn’t, in spite of everything that whispers “you’ll be sorry” in the back of your mind.  
  
You have to pause for breath eventually, and Dave hisses “god- _damnit_ ” against your lips, and you shiver all the way to your toes and dive right back into him. If he’s angry at you, or at himself, it’s going to have to wait. Priority Number One is now sloppy makeouts, and everything else can go straight to hell.  
  
“Pushy bastard,” he gasps the next time you let him up for air. “You don’t change, no matter what timeline you’re in. Always just doing whatever the hell you want, railroading everybody else in the process. You stubborn, insensitive, absolutely insane son of a—”  
  
“Whoa, hey,” you interrupt, “if you’re gonna ride my ass like that, at least pull my hair.”  
  
He gapes at you for a second. Then this slow grin takes over his face, and it’s about now that you start to wonder what you’ve gotten yourself into. “If you insist,” he says, and before you can explain the concept of sarcasm to him, he grabs a fistful of your hair and yanks, jerking your head back so he can deliver a vicious bite to your neck.  
  
“Fuck!” you hear yourself snarl, because that hurts, but it also feels really, really good, and when he licks you afterwards you all but melt, and somewhere in the back of your mind wonder how he knows exactly what buttons to push. You hope he’ll push a lot more of them before he’s through.  
  
His hands slide up under your shirt, and you tug impatiently at the collar of his, and between the two of you kissing messily and pulling on each other they both come off, somehow not even knocking either of your shades out of place because you and he are just that awesome. Your back hits the couch and he bites you again, on the collarbone this time, and you dig your nails into his shoulders, and he makes this completely amazing noise in the back of his throat that you swear you will be jacking off to the memory of years from now. His hands are everywhere; he’s rough with you, and sort of desperate, and you laugh under your breath because for all his bitching, he clearly wants this almost more than you do. Almost.  
  
He gets you back for chuckling at him by pinching your nipple fucking _hard_ , and you swear and kick him and he gives you an insufferable little smirk before dipping his head down to lick the flesh he just cheerfully abused, slowly and deliberately, and it’s not nearly so much in apology as it is to make you squirm. Which you _don’t_ , but just barely, particularly when he spends the next couple of minutes messing around with your nipples, licking and biting gently and pinching and rubbing until you’re sensitive enough that you almost can’t stand it anymore, and you’re caught between the urge to pull him closer and the one to push him away. He stops before you can make up your mind, and you suppress a moan of mingled relief and disappointment.  
  
You’re not the patient type, and apparently neither is he, because the next thing you know he slips a hand between your legs and _squeezes_ , and you arch up into him with this rough little gasp that you will later deny making, but ohshit you don’t care much as long as he keeps on doing that. It’s bizarre how he knows exactly what kind of things you like when even you didn’t know before, but who are you to question it? No, you sincerely do not give a shit about where he might have learned about all your hot spots, at least not right now. Later you might be jealous of a dead you from another time, but at the moment Dave is all yours, and you are positively thrilled to be all his. The way you’re moving insistently against him articulates precisely how much, and he echoes your quiet laugh from earlier.  
  
“Slow down, I’m not leaving in the next five seconds.” He seems inordinately pleased with himself for how he’s affecting you, and you growl a few insults at him for being a smug prick. Unfortunately, this only seems to amuse him. “You’re so fucking _expressive_. God, why did I not do this sooner?”  
  
“Maybe ‘cause you talk too damn much,” you suggest, and grind up into his palm for emphasis.  
  
“Pushy bastard,” he reiterates, and then unzips your pants and shoves his hand inside, and you bite your lip so hard you taste blood, but it’s better than mewling like a woman at the feel of him directly touching you. You _are_ squirming now, trying to get your jeans off without him having to stop. He only pauses for a moment to help you, and even that makes you curse in frustration. Your pants end up on the floor someplace, and then he wraps his hand around you again, and he laps the thin trickle of blood off your chin and kisses you, swallowing your low moan.  
  
In the spirit of fairness, you sit up halfway and blindly grope for whatever retarded fastenings keep those stupid, fantasy pajama bottoms from riding down his hips, and eventually discover two small buttons. You give a smart yank, grinning against Dave’s lips as you hear the buttons snap clean off. He makes a displeased sound, and you know he’s going to get you for that later. For now, you make sure he’s too preoccupied to think about revenge.  
  
His cock is thick and heavy and very warm, and when you rub your thumb across the tip of it Dave makes this short, breathy noise, so you do it again. He only lets you do it a couple more times before stopping you, and you scowl at him, but it turns out he only made you stop so he could get his pants off too. His boxers—black with little red clocks all over them—go the same way, and you discover that naked-Dave is even more attractive than clothed-Dave, which suits you just fine.  
  
He lays you back down and you let him, and after a brief bit of positioning you’re able to grind against each other. It’s so fucking _good_ , so different from your own hand, and you suspect you aren’t going to last very long. As though sensing that, Dave slows down, dragging things out, controlling your movements as well with his hands on your hips. And that feels amazing too, but also sort of maddening, and you fight to set your own tempo but he just holds you down harder, forcing you to accept whatever he offers. You curse him soundly. You don’t mean a word of it.  
  
Another gasp tears its way out of you when he finally, abruptly speeds up again, and shortly after that you are so far gone you are basically on another planet. You think you make a pretty embarrassing noise while you’re clawing the couch upholstery, but you aren’t sure. All you know for certain is shivery, astounding release, and the sheer perfection that is Dave groaning your name.  
  
You discover that Dave is the post-orgasm affection sort of guy, and you know you should probably think this is totally lame and tease him about it mercilessly, but really you’re too busy enjoying the fuck out of it. There’s something about slow, lazy makeouts that aren’t meant to go anywhere that you are somewhat surprised to find you like. Eventually, though, he plants a final kiss on your mouth and disentangles himself from your two-man Strider pile.  
  
“Stay put,” he instructs. “I’ll go grab a towel.” He flash-steps out of the room, leaving you to collect your thoughts.  
  
Your thoughts are as follows: you’ve just had a form of sex with your alternate-timeline brother. You enjoyed it immensely, and in fact, are already hoping to do it again. In addition to definitely wanting to try more sex with him, you are now completely convinced you have Feelings for Dave, and the fact that he will inevitably leave you does not in any way change that. You are probably going to regret all of this at some point in the near future. You and your Feelings still really want Dave.  
  
Maybe you _are_ in a doomed timeline. You wonder if it’s possible for all this complicated emotional shit to kill you.  
  
Dave returns with the promised towel, and hands it to you. You clean yourself off as best you can without soap and water (he’s already done the same, by the look of things), and then toss the soiled towel toward a miscellaneous corner of the room. You glance over at your houseguest, to find that he’s already looking at you. “That was nice,” you quip, to fill the silence. Then, on a whim, “Wanna go again?”  
  
He gives an amused snort, and punches you lightly in the shoulder. “No, thanks. I’m not as young as you.”  
  
“Ah yes, I forgot, you’re a decrepit old man of twenty-six. Forgive this impetuous youth for presuming you could keep up with my whirlwind vigor. You wuss.”  
  
“Dirk, I will end you. Put your fucking clothes on, before I’m tempted to beat some color into that pasty white ass of yours.”  
  
“Fuck you, old man.”  
  
“Later.”  
  
Holy shit. You actually blush faintly at that one, and hide it by gathering up your clothes and putting them back on your person where they belong.  
  
You are trying to think of what to do next when your phone rings. You check the caller I.D. and frown. You guess there was no avoiding this conversation forever. With stirrings of dread boiling up in your stomach, you press the Answer button. “Make it quick, English. I’m a busy guy.”  
  
“Strider? Thank heavens, if it was that chap from earlier I was going to have some kind of crisis. Who _was_ that?”  
  
You glance over your shoulder at Dave, who is now fully clothed and pretending not to listen. “He’s my new pimp. Since you went and shit all over them anyway, I decided to abandon my pride and my faith in myself as a human being and become a whore.”  
  
“Good god, man, I said I was sorry! I’ve been saying it for weeks! What’s it going to take for you to forgive me?”  
  
“A box of chocolates and some heartfelt blubbering might be a good start. Some flowers would be a thoughtful gesture too; I happen to like orchids, if you’re taking notes. Jesus, you’re never going to get a girlfriend if you don’t even know how to apologize.”  
  
“All right, look, I’m trying to be sensitive here, but you won’t stop being sarcastic and petty and making everything ten times harder than it needs to be! We need to talk about this, Strider, actually _discuss_ it like two mature people, and I can’t do it with you being—being so _you_!” Jake sounds less apologetic and more irritated now, and you might be tempted to feel bad about the way you’re acting if he hadn’t stomped all over your emotions like a total dick.  
  
“Sorry, English,” you tell him, “I’m afraid I can’t stop being ‘me.’ That’s the origin of our problem, if you recall.”  
  
He sighs, loud and long-suffering like, and for a while doesn’t say anything else. Just before you decide to hang up on him again, he speaks. “I want to come see you.”  
  
You go rigid at the words, and cold dread wars with the remnants of pathetic hope. It takes a minute to remember to breathe. You swallow hard, and try to keep your tone neutral. “That would be ill-advised.”  
  
“Say what you want; it’s something I think needs doing. I’ll be there in a couple of days, all right?”  
  
Your heart is beating a little faster, and you loathe yourself for it. It takes all your willpower to prevent your voice from shaking. “Fine. See you then.”  
  
You end the call, and avoid Dave’s eyes as you leave the living room. You go to your bedroom, and shut the door.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Okay! So, time shenanigans. Basically, I looked some stuff up to make sure I wasn't just pulling everything out of my butt in this chapter, and it's like this: as far as I can tell, Dave has never used his Time powers to go forward, only to go back. However, there has been nothing to indicate that he can't do it, so I theorized that maybe he doesn't because "Something Bad Would Happen." That is the theory I expanded upon for this chapter. Peeking at the future=cheating=doomed timeline. Make sense?
> 
> As far as the stable time loops go and having to make sure past-Dave makes the right choice instead of the wrong one, I tried to work within the canon as much as possible, i.e., as much as I actually understand it. I hope everybody's cool with that.))


	5. Chapter 5: Part 1

There’s a bowl of soup in front of you, and you don’t remember how it got there. You stare blankly at it, and then slowly realize that Dave must be responsible for the soup, because he’s standing next to you, arms folded impatiently.  
  
“Eat that,” he prompts. “Beating your own high score isn’t worth starving yourself to death, especially not on this piece of shit game, I promise.”  
  
Oh, right, you were playing a video game. Now that you think about it, you’ve been playing it for almost forty-eight hours now, without stopping to do anything but visit the bathroom once in a while. It was a good distraction. It prevented you from having to think.  
  
You’re actually really hungry, you realize, now that the fog of mindless leveling has lifted. Gratitude, however, has never been your strong suit. “What are you, my mom? And hey, it’s cool, knocking is so last year.”  
  
“I did knock. You were mesmerized by the pathetically bad graphics, so I let myself in. Eat the soup.”  
  
“Piss off.”  
  
Dave spreads his arms out wide and lifts his eyebrows mockingly high. “Oh, wow, behold my teen angst. I’m the only person in this terrible, lonely universe who’s ever had his heart gouged out. I’m gonna go cut on myself while I listen to The Cure, because my torment can only be expressed in copious amounts of blood and tears and incredibly shitty music.”  
  
Your hand clenches around the game controller. “Get out.”  
  
“Get over yourself,” Dave counters.  
  
“I’m not kidding.”  
  
“Neither am I. Suck it up and _eat the damned soup_.”  
  
You consider chucking the controller into his face. You consider drawing your sword on him. He just waits, his face impassive and his stance unyielding. You pick up the bowl and the spoon and eat.  
  
Dave sits on the bed next to you once you’re finished. “I get it, okay,” he says, his tone a hint gentler this time. “The guy who messed you up inside is coming here, probably sometime soon from what I overheard, and you don’t want to think about it until it happens. But you can’t just sit here and pretend like you’re not a functioning human being. How are you gonna face him if you haven’t even eaten or slept? It’s going to suck enough as it is; at least make sure you’re in fighting shape for it.”  
  
You sit with your shoulders hunched and your eyes down, and wonder how in any universe he could possibly be your _younger_ brother. He understands, he’s supportive, hell, he’s _here_ , and it’s more than anyone else has ever done. You’ve always been good at looking after yourself, because you’ve had to be; bills get paid, the fridge has food in it, your basic survival needs are met. But there’s never been anyone around when you’ve wanted company besides your puppets, and there’s been no guidance when you weren’t sure what to do about something, and there’s never been anybody to fight with or joke with or just _be_ with the way you do with Dave. You’ve never even met your supposed guardian face to face, though you’ve heard enough about his exploits to last you a lifetime. Even before he was dead, he was no more than a ghost, a phantom that will never even be half of what Dave is to you now.  
  
“Dirk? Hey, Earth to Dirk. This is Mission Base, do you copy.”  
  
You lift your head to look at Dave, and you don’t know if it was the soup or the advice or both, but you feel dangerously close to unleashing blatant emotions all over the fucking place. How can he do this to you? It’s not as if you don’t _feel_ , but it’s not like you to feel so _much_. It’s not like you to be so out of control. It’s all his fault; he’s a wrecking ball against your carefully-erected walls, proving once and for all that you aren’t as impenetrable as you seem. If only he’d never happened to you. If only he’d never leave. _I wish…._ you think, but you can’t finish that thought because it’s pointless and stupid and it hurts, and oh god you need to get away from him before you unman yourself. You abscond to the bathroom, locking the door behind you.  
  
You turn on the shower, strip down, and get in. The water streaming over your head is the closest thing to a “happy place” that you’ve ever had. Or it was, until you discovered the cathartic joys of sparring with _him_ on the roof. That wouldn’t help you now, though, since he’s kind of the problem. Or part of it, at least. This is a whole new level of Feelings to deal with, and you find yourself terminally confused.  
  
On the one hand, you’ve figured out that, simply put and ego aside, you’re in love with Dave. Like, honest-to-goodness, “want you, need you” love. On the other hand, the “love” you’re experiencing at this very moment is quite strongly the familial sort. Can you really feel both for the same person? As strange as it is, it seems that you can.  
  
To add complexity to the already-fucked-up equation, you have a nasty suspicion that you aren’t as over Jake as you hoped. He did reject you pretty recently, after all, and you don’t think that kind of thing just fucks off after a few weeks. In fact, you know it doesn’t. As big of an issue as your involvement with Dave is, this thing with English that’s hanging over you is currently a bigger one.  
  
You think you are probably screwed. No, check that; _definitely_ screwed. Your fail-crush is coming over today, and Dave was right, you aren’t prepared. You’re tired and conflicted and overwhelmed, and you might be unusually prone to doing or saying foolish things. You suspect that deep breaths and counting to ten are not going to be enough to get you through this without doing a spectacular flip off the handle. Your carefully crafted, “too cool” persona is going to die a bloody death.  
  
You exit the shower in record time, since it’s not helping much anyway.  
  
Dave arches an eyebrow slightly when you trudge back into your room, your shades held loosely in one hand and your hair dripping wet because you were too preoccupied to dry it properly.  
  
“He’s supposed to get here today,” you mutter.  
  
“What time?”  
  
“Dunno.”  
  
“Take a nap, dude; you need it. I’ll wake you up when he gets here.”  
  
“Dave,” you say, and you sound just the barest bit desperate, because you are. “Dave, I don’t know if I can deal. Tell him I’m not home or dead or something.”  
  
He gets to his feet and walks over to you, and you flinch and can’t even look at him for the shame, but he only lays a hand on your shoulder. “I’m not gonna do that. If I did, trust me, you’d be royally pissed at me, and yourself, once the panic wore off. Don’t back down now, and you won’t have to regret it later.”  
  
He’s right, and you hate it. But he’s not mocking you for your moment of weakness, and he’s saving you from eternal self-loathing, so you guess you can’t be too mad at him for being right.  
  
He gives you a push toward your bed. “Sleep. I don’t know how much you’ll get before Prince Charmless arrives, but it’s gotta be better than nothing.”  
  
With little else to do but worry as long as you’re awake, you take his advice and flop down on your bed for a nap, wet hair and all. You must have been more exhausted than you realized, because you lose consciousness soon after.  
  
As promised, Dave wakes you later, signaling that it’s time. You blink groggily at him; he has this subtly weird look on his face, almost like he’s trying not to laugh, and you can’t think why that would possibly be, since from your perspective, there is absolutely nothing funny about what you now have to endure.  
  
“I think you’d better get out there,” Dave says, and yeah, that’s definitely a touch of humor in his voice.  
  
You stare warily at him, half convinced that he’s lost his mind. Then, you hear the muffled shouting. “What the hell….”  
  
“Just go,” Dave insists, and you pause just long enough to slap your shades back into place before hurrying out of your room and down the hall.  
  
Just inside the front door of your house, face down in the carpet, is Jake English. Your sparring bot is sitting on his back, pinning both of his arms behind him in what looks to be a rather painful hold.  
  
“You pile of clanking refuse, what the devil-fucking-dickens is wrong with you!?” Jake is yelling at the robot when you arrive. He spots you, and pauses in his struggle to be free. “Strider! Call off this murderous scrapheap, blast it, my shoulders went numb ten minutes ago!”  
  
 _Ten minutes?_ you think, and shoot Dave a “What the Fuck” look over your shoulder. If Jake’s been here for more than ten minutes, that means that Dave waited to wake you for quite a while after he showed up. Which, in turn, most likely means he stood there and watched while A.R. ambushed Jake like a steel-plated ninja. The insufferable prick was probably laughing on the inside the entire time, too. “Playtime’s over, dumbass,” you tell your mechanical double. “Let him up.”  
  
A.R. does so, and Jake gives the robot a mistrustful glare as he climbs to his feet. “I gather this means you didn’t tell him I was coming.”  
  
No, you didn’t, but that means basically fuck-all when the bot can make out detailed facial features from eight hundred yards. He’s seen Jake enough times that he knows exactly who he is, so this happy little bushwhacking was no case of mistaken identity. You consider reminding Jake of these facts, but decide it’s better in this case to ere on the side of discretion. Since you have nothing to say concerning your robot’s rascally antics, you dodge the impending long, awkward silence by introducing Dave.  
  
You lift a hand to indicate the man in question. “English, this is my pimp. Pimp, Jake English.”  
  
“Nice to meet you,” Dave says, his tone and expression both completely neutral. When he looks like that, no one would ever know he was taking sadistic pleasure in their suffering but a moment before.  
  
Jake gawks a little. He looks at you, then at Dave again, and then back at you. “I thought he was dead.”  
  
You nearly commit an epic face-palm. Of _course_ he’d come to that conclusion; you and Dave do look very much alike, after all. And, well, you are technically related. Sort of. “The guy you’re thinking of is very much deceased, and you already know that because I told you about it. This is Dave. He’s staying here for a while.”  
  
Your visitor continues to regard you and your alternate-timeline sibling in a nonplussed fashion. “But….”  
  
“Shenanigans,” you explain. “Particularly complicated ones. You didn’t come over here to stare at my house-guest all fucking day.”  
  
“No, I didn’t,” Jake agrees, and the way he suddenly looks nervous makes you nervous too. It’s the same look he had when he was trying to figure out how to let you down easy—which was a bit beside the point, considering he’d already punched you in the face by then. “I don’t guess he could, er, scuttle off someplace?”  
  
Dave raises his hands in a yielding gesture. “Say no more. I’ll just take the rust-bucket there and get out of your hair. Come on, R-2.”  
  
“Fuck you, man, I’m so not a droid,” A.R. complains, but follows him out of the room anyway.  
  
You stare at your fail-crush, and he stares at the carpet, and that awkward silence sneaks in after all. You want him to say something so bad it’s killing you, but at the same time you don’t. You’re not sure what will come out of his mouth—or how you’ll handle it.  
  
He never was the patient one out of the two of you, and so he is inevitably the one to break the silence. “I was hoping I could apologize again,” he ventures, risking a careful glance at you to gauge your reaction. “I thought if I could do it in person, you might be more inclined to actually bend an honest ear to what I’m saying.”  
  
“I heard you already.”  
  
“Right, you heard,” he concedes. “But you weren’t _listening_. I know you, you stubborn ass. You’ve been tuning me out this whole time, letting everything I’ve said go straight in one ear and out the other. How many times do I have to tell you I’m sorry? I didn’t mean to…to hurt you that badly.”  
  
“I’m not hurt,” you lie. “I’m relieved. Now that it’s all out there in the open, I don’t have to sit around all day plucking daisies anymore, because obviously, the answer is ‘Loves Me Not.’ Thank you so much for confirming that one for me; it’s positively freeing.”  
  
“Will you _stop_!” Jake snaps, his hands balling up into fists. “For heaven’s sake, I’m being serious here, and you’re still acting like a brat! Is it any bally wonder I can hardly feel anything but exasperation towards you when you’re like this!?”  
  
You feel your whole body lock up in shock; it’s like someone dipped a knife in liquid nitrogen, and then promptly stabbed you in the back with it. “What,” you rasp, “are you saying it’s _my_ fault you don’t have homo feelings for me? Is that what I’m hearing from you, Jake English, because if it is I am so _goddamned sorry_ I ruined this for you, you giant, motherfucking BASTARD.”  
  
He steps back from you, and you feel a grim satisfaction at being the one to put that panicked expression on his face. “Hold on now, that’s not what I meant and you know it!”  
  
“Oh, really? Because that’s what it sounded like to me.” You take a purposeful step toward him, and almost sneer when he goes for his pistols. You draw your sword even as he pulls his weapons free from their holsters, and he’s forced to use the guns to block instead of fire. You weren’t planning to have this meeting degenerate into violence, but you’re so angry—and yes, hurt too, no matter what you say—that you can barely think straight, and all you want to do is make him pay.  
  
“You want to make up and be buddies again?” you growl, inches from his face. “Okay. Let’s have some good, old-fashioned guy-bonding time. Just you, me, and some incredibly dangerous toys. Wanna place bets on who bleeds the most?”  
  
“I didn’t come here to fight you!” Jake protests.  
  
“Too bad, dude, ‘cause we’re doing this. Now get your fucking guard up before I cut you into lunchmeat.”  
  
For a moment, you don’t think he’ll fight back. His eyes are wide and brimming with distress, and his whole body screams denial of the situation.  
  
Then he stomps your bare instep with a heavy-ass hiking boot, and cracks you in the temple with one of his guns while you’re busy swearing in pain. So much for not fighting back, but then, you ought to have expected it from the brawl-happy bastard.  
  
He re-holsters the pistols and comes at you with his fists instead, because come on, he’s not gonna _shoot_ you when he came over to talk. You’re not feeling quite as generous, and take a slice at him with your katana that leaves a long cut in his shirt and a thin line of red across his skin. He’s faster than you anticipated, though, probably from all the hours spent fighting the aptly nicknamed “Strife Bot”; he weaves around several more swings and then ducks under a particularly high one, tackling you around the waist with an angry shout. You hit the floor hard enough to knock the wind completely out of you, and your sword goes spinning across the room.  
  
Jake aims a punch at your face, but you turn the blow aside with your arm, and then knee him in the ribs hard enough to force a harsh explosion of a cough out of him. He recovers quickly, however, and backhands you across the jaw. You snarl and hit back, catching him square on the cheek and finally managing to throw him off you. You reverse your positions in the blink of an eye and punch him again, and again, solidly, and Jake is reeling a little, but he’s not helpless. He snaps a hand up and grabs a fistful of your hair, and slams his forehead into your nose. You’re both bleeding profusely now, and through the red haze of pain and rage you dimly realize that this isn’t making you feel any better. The revelation makes you falter a bit on your next attack, and Jake takes full advantage of your hesitation to belt you in the temple with a superb haymaker. Your vision actually goes black for an indeterminable number of seconds, and when it clears English is kneeling over you, and the cold barrel of a pistol is pressed to your head.  
  
“Right,” he says, a touch breathlessly, “that’s enough. I damn well came here to have a _discussion_ , and I’m not going to—”  
  
He falls silent rather abruptly, and you wonder if he’s been struck dumb by the sheer stupidity of your respective actions. Then his free hand brushes against your neck, and for a moment you are _intensely_ confused, because there’s no way he’d ever touch you like—but then you remember Dave’s teeth against your skin, and how it never even occurred to you to check yourself for marks.  
  
Jake stares dumbfounded at the bruise that must stand out like a beacon against your pale complexion. “Who….”  
  
What you hate the most is that your first and strongest instinct is to _deny_. Guilt wells up inside you, guilt which you know shouldn’t be there, not because of that mark on your neck. You see Dave’s face in your mind, and feel like a traitor. You swallow hard, and attempt to look like you don’t care. You’re pretty sure you fail. “I don’t know what your problem could possibly be. You didn’t want any of this, so don’t go acting like you’re upset that someone else got it.”  
  
Jake’s face does this weird thing like he’s not sure what expression to make, and you realize with a jolt that he _is_ upset, though surely not for the reason you just indicated. “For someone who was so bothered that I rejected you, you certainly didn’t squander much time finding a new obsession.”  
  
“Don’t you fucking dare pretend you’re so butt-hurt about who I sleep with,” you snap, bewildered at the way he’s acting, like you’ve offended him somehow, like any of this is in any way your fault. “You don’t give a shit, so just knock it off with the ‘oh my god, so betrayed’ routine.”  
  
“Well, look, you’ve been biting my head off and hanging up on me and generally being an enormous sack of dicks every time I try to call you and apologize,” the dark-haired boy says heatedly. “And now I find out you’ve been fooling around with someone the whole time, and you’re still acting like I need to be punished somehow, when _clearly_ , you’re not as heartbroken as you’d like me to believe!”  
  
“It—it wasn’t the whole time,” you protest, feeling that misplaced sting of guilt again. “He’s only been here for a little while.”  
  
“He…you mean _Dave_?” Jake gives you a look of complete disbelief. “That fellow with the aviator sunglasses and rotten phone etiquette who looks like he could be your father? _That’s_ who you’ve been letting put embarrassingly conspicuous hickeys on you?”  
  
“Yes, English, I have been letting him do terrible, nasty things to me,” you retort. “And I’ve been enjoying it hugely. And no, I didn’t get with him to spite you, so put that messed up notion out of your brain.”  
  
“Is it messed up?” he challenges. “The timing seems awfully convenient. It makes me wonder how much of the past several weeks has been genuine anguish on your part, and how much of it might have simply been an elaborate hoax.”  
  
That stabbed-in-the-back feeling hits you again, and your hands clench into fists. “You think I’d fucking _joke_ about any of this!?”  
  
“I don’t know! You’re always irony this, sarcasm that, ‘golly, let’s push Jake’s buttons just to see him explode!’ And then you go and do something like profess to have romantic feelings for me, only to gallivant off into some stranger’s arms practically the moment I don’t reciprocate! I don’t know what’s _real_ when it comes to you, and I’m starting to wonder if I ever will!”  
  
“Well fuck you and the high-fucking-horse you rode in on,” you growl at him. “What happens between Dave and me is none of your damn business. To clarify, in case you hadn’t fucking figured it out yet, _nothing_ in my personal life is any of your damn business, and that’s all on you for deciding not to be a part of it.”  
  
Jake reddens in what appears to be sheer frustration. “I’m not in love with you! That doesn’t mean I don’t give a rip about you! You’re my friend and I thought I’d _hurt_ you, and it was tearing me up inside, and now, knowing that you actually had someone already—confound it, Dirk, I feel like you were just having me on!”  
  
He’s…Christ, he’s really broken up about this. He was really upset about what he thought he’d done to you, and then you went and inadvertently made it seem like you were laughing at him the entire way. “I wasn’t doing that,” you argue, feeling a little lost. “I didn’t have someone before. I meant what I said, no irony or sarcasm attached.”  
  
“So? What’s this, then?” He pokes you in the neck, making you wince a bit.  
  
You glance away, even though he probably can’t quite see your eyes behind the shades anyway. “That’s something else altogether. Dave’s been good for me, okay? I like having the guy around. But I wasn’t messing around with him—or anybody else—while I was still trying for you.”  
  
Jake relaxes a little, and the angry color fades from his face. “I suppose I can swallow that.”  
  
“So happy I could make it ingestible for you. Would you mind getting off of me now?”  
  
He eyes you warily. “You’re not going to attack me, are you?”  
  
“I’ll leave kicking your ass again to a more opportune time.”  
  
“I believe, Mr. Strider, that if you review the tussle of a few minutes ago, you will find that I kicked _your_ ass. And soundly at that.”  
  
“I felt sorry for you. Letting you win was my way of accepting your pathetic, whiny apologies.”  
  
“Oh, well, if you say so.”  
  
“I do very-fucking-much say so. You’re welcome, by the way.”  
  
He rolls his eyes spectacularly, but gets to his feet without commenting. You follow suit, and silently praise the heavens that you know some great techniques for getting blood out of fabric. Things are uncomfortable all over again as the two of you stand there, and wonder what exactly you’re supposed to do now.  
  
“Maybe I ought to shove off for now,” Jake suggests lamely. “But I rented a hotel room, so I’ll still be in town for a bit….”  
  
You think about asking him to stay, since the thing between you isn’t really resolved, and he’s covered in blood that you put there, and there’s so much more you’d say to him if you could, like how you honestly do still want to be palhonchos. Instead, you nod, and tell him, “I’ll text you later. Cool?”  
  
“Ice cold,” he replies, smiling awkwardly, and since you’re not quite back on good enough terms for fist bumps, you just watch him walk out the front door.  
  
You take a moment to think about how it went. It was a short visit, and not exactly a merry one, but it might possibly fall under the “Progress” category. All in all, you’re not sure how you feel about it. Or how you feel about anything, for that matter. You’re kind of blank on the inside right now (aside from vague, lingering remorse over being a jerk), and you’re not happy, but you still aren’t really _sad_ anymore, so you’re caught between the two in some kind of emotional purgatory. It could be the blood loss, you suppose. Or maybe you have a concussion or something. Or maybe you’re just in shock.  
  
You wander into the kitchen, where Dave is hanging out with A.R. at the table. The man doesn’t say anything immediately, just directs you to a chair before going to the sink. He wets a clean dishtowel and comes back, and carefully begins cleaning the blood off of you.

  
  
“I figured things had gone south when I heard the yelling. You guys hash it all out?”  
  
You don’t stop him when he removes your shades so he can wipe the crusted-on splatters of red off your cheek. “I guess.”  
  
“Good.” A last, matter-of-fact swipe, and you are clean again; he gives you back your shades, and you just cradle them in one hand and look at him. Dave frowns at the state of your nose. “Hold still,” he says, and you try not to wince as he gently prods the abused cartilage. “It’s not broken, but you’re gonna have a hell of a bruise.”  
  
“You should see the other guy.”  
  
“Yeah, I just bet.”  
  
You slide a hand around the back of his neck, pull yourself up, and kiss him.  
  
“Whoa,” remarks A.R. from across the table.

  
  
Dave lets you get away with it for a minute, but then takes you by the shoulders and pushes you back so he can look you in the eyes. “I’m obligated to ask for your motivation here, bro.”  
  
You can’t help but roll your eyes at that. “I’m fine. Does me wanting to kiss you automatically have to mean that I’m totally distraught over recent events, and need to be comforted while I weep against your manly breast? I don’t have any motivation. Unless, of course, you count my near-constant hard-on for you.”  
  
He doesn’t look one hundred percent convinced, but you really couldn’t care less. You’re feeling less drained and regretful and shocky by the second now that you’re back with him, and you don’t care about things like “motivation.” You simply want him, because he’s kind, and fucking gorgeous, and because his very presence makes you feel warm and alive, and you aren’t about to take “no” for an answer.  
  
Luckily, Dave isn’t the sort of guy to refuse a sexy blond, any more than you are. He kisses you back the next time, and you are secretly delighted when he scoops you up like you weigh jack-anything, his hands wrapped around the backs of your upper thighs; you immediately loop your arms around his neck in return, for additional support, and because you just really want to.  
  
“Can I come too?” A.R. asks casually as Dave starts to walk off with you.  
  
Dave disengages with your tongue for a moment to answer. “No.”  
  
“Killjoy.”  
  
“None shall pass.”  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Because I started writing this before I knew details about his living situation, I've decided to stick with the "Dirk lives in an actual goddamn house, not in the middle of the fucking ocean somehow" thing. So, yeah, there will be a front yard and a back yard and there will be no people parachuting onto the roof when they visit, even though that'd be kinda fun if it wouldn't screw with the plot.))


	6. Chapter 5: Part 2

Flash-stepping makes short work of the trip to your room, and Dave pauses just long enough to kick the door shut and dump you on your bed before attacking your lips again. A few smuppets squeak under your combined weight and Dave flinches; you snicker, and he scowls at you before manhandling you out of the way enough that he can swat the “velvety abominations”—as he has often referred to them—off the bed.  
  
There’s an undercurrent of urgency every time he touches you, you’re discovering, and in the back of your mind you know the reason for it. He’s thinking about Things Yet to Be, and while you hate and resent that a little, you’re thinking about it too. Thoughts like those are what make you more or less willing to let him set the pace however he wants to, and if the way you both end up naked and sliding against each other seems a little rushed, you don’t mind. This kind of contact is hot and beautiful and so sincere that it actually makes you a little uncomfortable on some levels, but if it never stops you will be all kinds of okay with that.  
  
His lips revisit the fading bruise on your neck, and you suddenly don’t understand why you ever felt ashamed of it. He can mark you over and over if he wants; the world can take a good, long look and then kiss your ass if they don’t like what they see. And maybe there are still plenty of unresolved feelings for a boy who was never yours, but you are becoming more and more willing to let Dave drive them away. You want that, want him to replace everything that hurts, everything that’s frustrating, everything that’s lonely or angry or sad. You want him to be all that’s left inside of you, and you want it so much it scares you. No, more than scares you; it _terrifies_ you, because you’ve never wanted another person to own you this way. Even with Jake, you wanted him to belong to you, not the other way around.  
  
You’re basically appalled to find yourself shaking, and your embarrassment only deepens when Dave lifts his head out of the crook of your neck to stare at you.  
  
“Dude, are you all right?” he asks softly, like he’s afraid to break you, and you want to snap at him that you’re fucking _fine_ , all systems go, the Strider machine is at one hundred percent, but all you can manage is a tiny nod, and he doesn’t swallow that for a minute. “We don’t have to do this….” he suggests, and you bark out a weird, miserable sort of laugh, because that’s not even close to being what’s making you shiver like a damned leaf in the wind.  
  
You can’t _explain_ it, though. You don’t have the words, so all you can do is let him run his fingers through your hair in an awkward attempt at comfort. You pull him down and kiss him, nip at him when he tries to resist, and yeah, you’re every bit the pushy bastard he’s accused you of being, but you need—shit, and you can’t even think it, because you’re a Strider and Striders don’t _need_ people. Except that you do.  
  
You break away from his mouth to nuzzle his cheek like an attention-starved cat, and then you lean up further to mouth at his ear, a thing that nearly makes his arms buckle where they’re busy holding him up over you. “Fuck me,” you demand, and he just barely trembles.  
  
“Jesus,” he mutters, the word hardly more than an exhalation. He doesn’t say no, though at first it seems like he might. He looks at you long and hard, trying to figure out if what you’re asking for is actually okay for him to give you. You stare him down, and in the end, rather than object, he seeks out your lips again with his own. You sigh a little in relief; once again, he’s letting you show weakness without mocking you or making a federal fucking issue out of it. He makes it okay for you to let your guard down a bit, something you never even used to do when you were all by yourself, and it’s new and sort of freeing and it makes you fall just a little harder for him.  
  
“Do you have anything,” he asks you between kisses. “If you want to, we’re going to need—”  
  
“Sock drawer,” you tell him, and he gives an amused little snort, because that’s the first place anybody hides their K-Y, which means it’s the last place he would’ve looked, since he was expecting it to be somewhere weird and ironic, like the microwave. Of course, keeping it in a normal place when everyone’s expecting otherwise is what makes that normal place ironic after all. You’ll explain it to him later, when there aren’t more important things to deal with, like getting laid.  
  
He’s gone and back before it even really seems like he left (being hella fast is convenient at times like this). You are just the slightest bit put off by the feel of him pressing the first, lubed-up finger into you, because it’s novel and bizarre and kind of hurts, but he’s careful, and he caresses you in all the right places with his other hand, and you get over the discomfort soon enough. It even feels good after a while, and after a while more, it becomes vaguely insufficient. He seems to know it, and teases you to the edge of frustration before slipping you a second finger. You arch up a bit when he does that, a soft hiss escaping between your teeth. Pain sparks across your nerves all over again, but pleasure isn’t far behind it, and when he curls his fingers _just like that_ you shudder, and let out a barely audible “ahhh _fuck_.”  
  
“Okay there?” he asks, smirking faintly because he already knows you are so much more than okay.  
  
You flip him the bird rather than dignify that with an answer, and he laughs, the sound low and incredibly hot, and you have to try really hard not to shiver again just for that. He rubs his fingers over that “oh, wow” spot inside you again, and you shiver anyway.  
  
He twists his hand, stretching you, brushes that maddening place yet again, and then starts thrusting his fingers in and out of you, and you want to writhe, it feels so good. You could come just from him doing that, you’re sure. It almost seems like that’s his goal, because he doesn’t stop, even when your toes are curling and your legs are trembling a little bit each time he pushes his fingers back inside, and your nails are digging into your bed so hard they’re threatening to rend holes in the sheets. At the last minute, he finally takes his hand back, leaving you to gasp and fight for your control and mentally curse him so hard it would probably cause a whole ship’s worth of sailors to redden in shock if they heard it.  
  
“Fuckin’ tease,” you accuse him when you catch your breath.  
  
“What can I say,” Dave replies with the barest hint of a grin, “I love watching you squirm.”  
  
“You’re a sick bastard.”  
  
“Kinda goes without saying, don’t you think? I’m a decrepit old man of twenty-six, fucking an incredibly sexy sixteen-year-old. And let’s not forget the cross-dimensional incest factor.” He ghosts his clean hand up your inner thigh, and you fight back a potentially humiliating moan. It shouldn’t be possible to want someone this much.  
  
“They oughta lock you up and throw away the key, you nasty pedo,” you reply, trying and failing fantastically to not make that sound like a come-on.  
  
“You mean _biz_ nasty pedo, of course.”  
  
“Fucking damnit, why are you still _talking_ ,” you growl. “Your dick in me now, or I’ll put your shades down the garbage disposal.”  
  
“Pushy,” Dave says, shaking his head in mock dismay.  
  
“Tease,” you counter sharply.  
  
You can’t stay mad at him for tormenting you for long, though, because he only backs off long enough to smear lube onto his cock before he slides a hand behind one of your knees, spreads you open, and with his other hand guides himself in.  
  
You hiss softly, because it’s somewhat more painful than you thought it would be; not totally unbearable, but enough to make your hard-on wilt a bit. Dave is a total bro, though, and waits for you to stop gritting your teeth before pushing in the rest of the way. That accomplished, he pauses again to get used to the tight fit, and let you do the same.  
  
The discomfort recedes gradually, though you still wouldn’t categorize what you’re feeling as pleasure yet. You’re still a little sensitive from Dave’s fingers in you, but other than that, you aren’t sure what part of full-on sex is supposed to be so mind-blowing. Maybe the internet lied to you after all?  
  
Then Dave starts to move, and oh, okay, that’s…interesting. You squirm half-consciously, trying to get more of what you are almost definitely sure feels good, and then he adjusts his angle of entry a little— “Ohshit, hello,” you breathe out, and Dave grins like a sonuvabitch, the white flash of his teeth nearly predatory. You don’t know why he gets off on you reacting to him so much, but the fact that he can _make_ you react chafes your pride just enough that you retaliate by deliberately clamping down around him, forcing a choked noise out of him.  
  
“You brat,” he says, his voice a tad strained.  
  
“Yup,” you reply, and do it again, and Dave makes this low growl and tightens his grip behind your knee, braces his other hand against the bed, and slams his hips forward hard enough to startle a rather loud curse out of you. “FUCK!”  
  
“Uh-huh,” he mutters, “that’s the idea.” The next thrust isn’t quite as brutal, but it still manages to drag a tiny groan out of you. He aims for your sweet spot and sets a rhythm that is hard and fast and, as it turns out, just the way you like it, and you brace yourself as best you can and try not to moan helplessly. You mostly succeed. Mostly.  
  
You’re right near the edge again when he abruptly stops, and you swear you’re ready to rage-murder him—why does he keep doing this to you, the motherfucking TEASE—but he just gives you his familiar, lazy smirk and leans down to kiss you. You bite his lip out of spite, which he was expecting and of course doesn’t give a damn about. When violence doesn’t work, you resort to playing nice, kissing and licking at his mouth and running your hands through his ridiculously soft hair, and generally pleading with your body for him to just give you what you fucking need, already. _Come **on** ,_ you think, but there is no way you are going to beg out loud, no matter how badly you want him. It’s just not happening. Ever.  
  
“Take it easy, Dirk,” he says, and from his vaguely amused tone of voice, you’re positive he’s doing this to get you back for provoking him before. “Believe it or not, this _can_ last a little longer.”  
  
You’ve been dragged to the brink and cut off from the sweet free-fall _twice_ now, and you’re so sensitive it almost hurts, and so impatient you could scream if it weren’t beneath you. He brushes his hand against your cock and you nearly choke on air. “Don’t, _don’t_ ,” you blurt, and your voice comes out breathy and cracking a little, and you claw weakly at his wrist, not sure whether you want him to back off or ignore you and keep touching.  
  
Dave moves his hand away from your aching erection to stroke the flat plane of your stomach instead, which still makes you shiver, but doesn’t make you want to sob, so it’s all right. “You are so fucking sexy right now,” he murmurs, and your face goes all hot, because you know you’re sexy, of course you do, but no one ever _tells_ you except maybe for Roxy, but she’s drunk whenever she says it, plus she’s practically like an obnoxious little sister to you, so it doesn’t mean quite the same coming from her. From Dave, it means…well, you’re afraid to examine that too closely, because then you’ll start getting all overwhelmed again, and you don’t want to ruin this thing that the two of you have going.  
  
He resumes thrusting into you, deep and slow this time, and if you can’t exactly stifle the moan that rolls off your tongue, then at least you have the satisfaction of seeing him tremble a bit. He’s not nearly as in control as he wants you to think, and you know that should make you feel empowered or something, but for some reason it just makes it even harder for you to hold yourself back. Knowing that he’s gradually coming undone—because of what he’s doing to _you_ —is like the ultimate high, and you’re swiftly forgetting why it is that you’re trying so hard not to act like this is the most awesome thing that’s ever happened to you. What was your reason again? Something about pride or maintaining someone’s cool or whatever? You’re not sure you give even half a shit at this point. Like, maybe not even a quarter of a shit. There is an entire fucking _universe_ of shit out there that you just do not give, because all you are capable of caring about right now is the feel of Dave sliding into you over and over, stroking over that completely amazing place inside and making you shudder.  
  
And you appreciate the whole thing with him taking his sweet time and letting you feel every last inch of him and generally driving you absolutely _nuts_ , truly you do, but at some point you simply can’t stand it any longer, and there was something earlier about refusing to beg, but you can’t remember anymore, so you dismiss it as being far less important than getting Dave to just fucking _fuck_ you, for chrissakes. “Dave, _god_ , come on, harder,” you plead, the words tumbling out of you without a hint of either irony or dignity, but you don’t care because he lets out a rough gasp at hearing you ask him for what you want, and what’s left of your conscious mind files that away for later: Dave is vulnerable to naughty talk.  
  
Vulnerable enough to give in, at least. He holds back just long enough to make sure of his positioning, and then resumes pounding into you with just shy of painful force. The drastic change has you struggling to keep pace, bucking your hips up to meet him and trying to remember to breathe past the overpowering sensations and sort of failing at it. A particularly well-aimed thrust forces a harsh cry out of you, and you’ll scold yourself for the loss of control later, but right now you are so far past pride that is isn’t even a thing that exists. You just want more and more and more of Dave, and he seems beyond willing to oblige you. Towards the end he wraps a hand around your cock, almost as an afterthought, and he barely pumps it twice before you’re shaking and grabbing desperately at his shoulders and moaning out a string of nonsense that includes a number of very colorful words. And somewhere between “fuck” and “yes,” you fumble out what you really mean, and you can’t even bring yourself to be self-conscious.  
  
Dave follows you over the edge shortly after that, and moments later he’s panting softly into your sweaty, disheveled hair as he gradually comes down from his release, and you cling, honest-to-god _cling_ to him and revel in how shockingly warm his skin is against yours. You’re fucking exhausted and you love it, and you love _him_ , and you feel sticky and vaguely sore and kind of perfect for the first time in your life. It’s really, really nice, but it’s also a little too much, and you find yourself wobbling on the brink of complete oblivion.  
  
“Go ahead and crash,” Dave murmurs, and lays a kiss on your damp forehead. “I’m not going anywhere.”  
  
Something inside you melts into a gooey puddle of pure, unfiltered affection. You’re so glad no one else is around to see you right now, or you’d have to kick yourself pretty hard for all the lameness you’re radiating. Seriously, if the planet’s atmosphere was composed of Cool instead of ozone, you’d be single-handedly burning a huge-ass hole in it.  
  
Somehow, you’re okay with that. For now at least.  
  
You close your eyes and let yourself slip under, and you do it assuming that when you wake up, he’s going to give you a hard time, because passing out post-sex is for wimps, and it’s his duty as a fellow Strider to call you on it. And you’ll bristle and defend yourself as best you can, and secretly adore the way he smiles and laughs, because you finally care about something more than you do about your reputation as an unshakable badass.  
  
Yes, you think as darkness descends like a warm blanket, that sounds like a good plan.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((There is art for this chapter, but I wasn't sure if it was allowed on this site, so here's the link instead: http://tres13.tumblr.com/image/30923110198  
> Nsfw!))


	7. Chapter 6

You are Dave Strider, and for a doomed man, you’re feeling pretty content.  
  
The temptation to follow Dirk down into slumber is powerful, but there are plenty of reasons to resist the urge. First and foremost is that you didn’t get to brush the limp, blond strands of hair away from his eyes, and you kind of want to try that, so you do. Color you sappy, but everything about this kid threatens your cool, and not necessarily in bad ways. For example, the dusting of super-pale freckles scattered across his cheeks makes you want to kiss all over his face, and you imagine how he’d scowl indignantly at you, and how he’d neglect to push you away all the same.  
  
In the sanctuary of your own mind, you admit that you missed him. You missed him like _hell_. Even if this is not the “Bro” that you knew, he is still somehow _yours_ , and damn you for sounding like that insane juggalo Gamzee, but it’s a motherfucking miracle. He’s a study in contrasts, sharp-edged and soft, stubborn and yielding, prickly and passionate, fragile and brave. In the time that you’ve known him, you’ve come to feel like he’s like your brother, your son, and your lover, all wrapped into one. You could spiel about it like one of Karkat’s shitty romcoms all day long, and it still wouldn’t capture just how amazing he is. Christ, you just want to bundle him up in your arms and never let him go; he never even needed a katana to pierce you straight in the heart, through all your layers of cynicism, through all your masks, through all the fear and anger and bitterness of a years-long war that you thought had left you jaded forever.  
  
The warm cloud of post-coital bliss is slipping away, and a distant sound starts up in your subconscious mind; it’s like the stiff, achingly-slow turning of a giant clock gear, lost somewhere out in space, and that last thought echoes uncannily around the inside of your skull. _Jaded…Jaded?_ You bolt upright so fast it makes your head spin. _**Jade!**_  
  
It’s gotten late, the room has darkened, and a pair of glowing orange eyes appearing out of the dimness nearly gives you a fucking heart attack. Then you realize it’s only A.R., but it doesn’t cause your pulse to slow down much because now, finally, the disoriented tangle of events in your mind has resolved itself, and you’ve _remembered_.  
  
“It wasn’t Jack Noir who sent me here,” you say hoarsely. “It was _Jade_. She was—oh fuck, she was still alive after that attack, and I left her there with that monster.”  
  
The robot tilts his head slightly in what, on a human, might have been confusion. “I just came to check if you two were finished humping like rabbits yet. What are you talking about, exactly?”  
  
“My friend, Jade,” you respond, numb horror still uncoiling inside of you. “Jack came at me, he was trying to stop me from using my Time powers, and she…she grabbed me just when I activated them. She must have been trying to use her Space powers to teleport me away from Jack, but they interfered with my Time thing and sent me here. We always wondered what would happen if our powers ever mixed. Shit, talk about ‘don’t cross the streams.’” You rake a hand through your vaguely sweaty hair and exhale slowly, trying not to freak, not here, not now when you need to concentrate. “I should’ve remembered sooner. Why did it take me so long?”  
  
A.R. moves a little closer to you, and even in your current state of mind you can’t help but admire the craftsmanship that went into his artificial body. He doesn’t creak or clank or even squeak when he moves; he’s quiet as a cat and about a million times more deadly. “It seems you’ve figured out how you got here,” he conjectures. “Does that mean you’re going to leave now?”  
  
You freeze up inside for a whole different reason, and you can’t help glancing at the sleeping boy sprawled out next to you on the bed. The timeline is swiftly falling into place in your brain, showing you the twisted, convoluted paths that led you to where and when you are. But you’re so fucking _forgetful,_ it’s your worst trait, and you know that if you don’t act soon, the way will fade from your memory, and you’ll be trapped again.  
  
“Yeah,” you say, soft and full of self-loathing. “I have to go. I’ll only understand this mess in my head for a little while. If it’s going to be ever, it has to be now.”  
  
“He’s had his squishy human feelings stomped on once already, you know. And in spite of their dubious progress of earlier today, I sincerely fucking doubt he’s over Jake English.” The robot’s eyes seem to flare a little brighter, a little more intensely. “I’m not an expert on living emotions, not even those of my creator, but I’m almost one hundred percent certain that you leaving him is going to have extremely negative effects.”  
  
God, you know that, but what choice do you have? You have a duty, and you can’t just abandon it, not even for the sake of your own, equally squishy feelings. Was this how your older brother felt when he went to fight Jack, knowing he was probably going to die? He was always stronger than you, inside and out. If leaving you hurt him as much as leaving Dirk is hurting you now, he was too courageous to show it. At a time like this, you wish you were more like him. “I can’t stay. Tell him I’m sorry.”  
  
“Tell him yourself.”  
  
You stiffen, because that was not A.R. speaking. Heavy with guilt, you turn to meet Dirk’s definitely-not-asleep gaze. He’s schooled his face into cold apathy, but you can see anger—and betrayal—roiling behind his fire-orange eyes. “How much did you hear?”  
  
“I’ve been conscious about since ‘humping like rabbits.’ And thank you, A.R., for being an intrusive prick.”  
  
“No problem, especially since if I wasn’t, this douchebag would’ve absconded while you were still out cold.”  
  
It’s true, you would have, and knowing that makes everything hurt even more. “Dirk,” you say, wanting to explain, wanting to at least _try_ to make it not as hard, “I have to leave. I have to stop it all from happening. I don’t have a choice here.”  
  
“Yeah, you do,” he replies. “You’re just not choosing this.”  
  
“Dirk—”  
  
He cuts you off with a sharp gesture of his hand. “Shut up, I get it. So…how are you going to do it anyway? I thought you couldn’t go sideways on your own.”  
  
You are the biggest fuckass in this or any universe, it is _you_ , and you almost wish he would scream at you, but that is not and never has been the Strider Way. “I didn’t, as it turns out. There isn’t an easy way to explain it, but it’s actually more like I went diagonally and backwards. The good news is that your timeline is related to past-me’s timeline; I just have to go back far enough so that your timeline hasn’t been created yet.” You really hope he doesn’t ask you to elaborate on that one, because you’re not sure you could put it into words in the moments that you have left. It’s truly ironic, you think, that you’re the fucking Knight of Time, and you haven’t got nearly enough time to spare. You wish you could appreciate the God Tier levels of irony in that, but all you really feel is miserable.  
  
Dirk doesn’t say anything as you clean up and dress. Nor does he stop you when you kneel on the bed and kiss him softly. “I’m sorry,” you tell him, and you’ve never been more sincere about anything in your life. A bright burst of knowledge along the path unwinding in your mind reminds you that there’s hope, and you do your best to share it with him. “It’s not like you’ll never see me again, okay? It won’t—” You pause, compose yourself—you have to be tougher than this, he’s expecting you to and you can’t fail him—and go on. “It won’t be _me_ , exactly. But there’ll be other Daves. Hell, there might be one in your near future. All you have to do is remind him what a terminally cool guy you are, and the dumbass will trip head over heels for you so hard, he’ll forget which way is up.”  
  
And then he’s hugging you fiercely, desperately, and you’re embracing him back just as hard, and you don’t ever want to let go of him, even as you understand why you must. It’s inevitable; even if you stay, death will catch up to you eventually. That’s what being “doomed” means, after all.  
  
“I don’t fucking _want_ some other Dave,” the boy you love insists, and you kiss him, over and over, you know, you _know_ , you don’t want to leave him to some other version of you, who won’t know him like you’ve come to know him, who won’t be driven by sheer urgency to lay it all out there and love him because there’s just no time to waste. Your other selves are all so _naïve_ , and the thought of trusting Dirk to any of them makes you want to weep or kill something or both.  
  
“I’m sorry,” you say again, and it’s never going to be enough. “I have to go. I have to.”  
  
“You son of a bitch,” Dirk says hoarsely—he sounds like he’s fighting back what he feels with everything he has, but he won’t give in, not in front of you—and he’s still so strong and you’re so proud of him, and so agonizingly in love, and you don’t have the time or the words to tell him how much.  
  
You let go of him, and feel like you won’t even have to go back in time to die; this is going to kill you right now. “Hey, rust-bucket,” you say, and A.R. nods to show he’s listening. “Don’t be too hard on him when I’m gone.”  
  
“I know how to look after my fleshy counterpart, Dave. Don’t worry about it.”  
  
You step back and Dirk reaches for you reflexively. He stops, looks away, lowers his hand. If you observe the wounded slump of his shoulders for a single moment longer you’ll lose your resolve, so you close your eyes and focus on the Path. It’s there behind your eyelids, a shimmering web made up of infinite strands of possibility. You single out the one you need…and take hold.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


	8. Chapter 7: Final

Later, after he’s long gone, you’re shifting piles of your stuff around (i.e. cleaning your room), just to have something to do, when you come across something you’d forgotten you had. It’s a page torn out of a magazine that you read when you were younger, and kept and lost and eventually, let slip from memory. It’s an article about an upcoming film that actually came out years ago, and beside the rambling text is a photograph.  
  
You look at that picture for a long time, unable to believe you forgot about it in the first place. It’s the only existing photograph of the man you call your guardian. He was always notorious for avoiding the paparazzi, so when you came across this picture of him, it felt like a small victory. You finally had a face to put to the outrageous exploits of your elusive “Bro.”  
  
The man in the photo is a dead-ringer for the one who left you only a day ago.  
  
It’s a long time before you can put the magazine page away in a drawer. The mystery of why Dave seemed so familiar to you from the beginning is now solved. In a way, you already knew him before he showed up in your timeline. All that really means, though, is that now you’ve lost him _twice_.  
  
You don’t mope about it. You update your websites, and crush Square-Wave in rap battles, and take your epically-long showers and act like nothing’s wrong.  
  
But there are also moments when you can’t _breathe_ , it hurts so badly, when all you can do is sit wherever you happen to be at the time and hold back the pain with all your might, not because you’re ashamed to cry (yes, you are), but because he wouldn’t want you to.  
  
A.R. is doing most of the work when it comes to answering your Pesterchum messages, and when he’s not doing that he’s staying out of your way, and when he isn’t doing _that_ he’s sitting next to you with a hard, metal hand on your shoulder and not being an obnoxious prick for once, because even a machine can see how messed up inside you are. Not broken, never that, but certainly cracked in places that you’re not sure are ever going to mend.  
  
Jake comes over to hang out with you, and when he’s around you try to focus on being buddies again, maybe even better buddies than you were before, and as it turns out, it’s so much easier to get over him than it is to get over…well, you try not to even think his name, and you know it’s uncharitable, but as the days go by and there is nothing left of him to remind you, it gets harder to remember if he was even real, or if this pain is just your brain’s way of getting back at you for something. He was there one moment, and then you blinked and he was gone, no fanfare, no bells and whistles, no glowy, magical explosions, just fucking gone like waking up from a dream, and you start to think that’s all it really was. A dream.  
  
And then you have another one of those episodes where you can’t move and can’t breathe and won’t let yourself cry, and you know it couldn’t have been a dream, because no fabrication of your subconscious could ever torture you like this.  
  
There’s one day, when English is visiting you, and the two of you are chilling and watching some movie he brought with him from home, and he glances around the room and frowns like he’s just realized something is out of place. “Say,” he ventures, “I haven’t seen that Dave chap since the first time I dropped in on you. Did he go somewhere?”  
  
And then Jake looks at you and goes white as a cheap Halloween sheet-ghost, and it’s only after staring blankly at him for a few seconds and wondering what the hell his deal is that you feel the tears rolling down your face. _Damn,_ you think, but can’t even lift your hand to brush the incriminating wetness away, because all the strength has gone out of you, and you can’t shake the pain off or hold it back anymore. It just keeps growing, and now there’s simply too much to keep it all safely behind your eyes.  
  
English tentatively reaches a hand out and pats you on the back, in what is likely meant to be a comforting gesture. “Er, there, there, Strider, it’ll be all right. I’m sure he’ll be back eventually, I mean, he seemed like a capital fellow from what I saw of him, and well, he’d be an idiot not to come back to you when you obviously care so much.”  
  
“He won’t come back,” you tell him dully. “He’s probably dead by now.”  
  
“Oh….” The dark-haired boy shifts uneasily on the couch next to you. “Um…sorry to hear that. I guess saying ‘chin up’ at this point would be inappropriate?”  
  
A.R. comes up behind Jake and slaps him across the back of the head, then leaves the living room without a word.  
  
You and your gun-toting friend sit in awkward silence for several minutes before you’re finally able to get up, wipe your eyes, and walk out.  
  
You sit in your room for a while and bitterly resent Jake for making you realize that it was all real after all. You truly did love somebody named Dave, and he’s truly gone. You knew all of that already, of course; it’s only that there was still a part of you that was in denial. Now that part is silent, and you can’t even pretend _just a little_ that this isn’t ripping you to shreds.  
  
You go out into your living room and pick a fight with Jake, and when he gives up sooner than you think is fair, you go and pick a fight with A.R., and when he beats you because you aren’t putting any real spirit into it, you go and sulk on the roof. You think of the last time Dave was up here with you, and since you’ve already given in to tears once today, you figure you might as well do it again. No one is around to see you anyway.  
  
It’s not gross, violent sobbing or anything like that. You grieve silently, and if it weren’t for the slight breeze that makes the wetness on your face cold and blatantly obvious, you might even be able to pretend you’re not crying at all.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
Later on, after a couple of days of miserable procrastination, you tell Jake what happened, who Dave actually was, where—and when—he came from, and why he had to leave. He takes it pretty well, considering you don’t bother to leave out the fact that you and Dave were alternate-timeline siblings of some sort. He’s even supportive, in that bumbling, heavy-handed way that used to be one of the things you loved about him. You still appreciate him for who he is, but you don’t think you’re in love with him anymore. It’s a good thing; you don’t think you could handle the combined angst of two doomed loves at once.  
  
You kiss him once, and he doesn’t stop you, though he’s rigid and uneasy throughout it. You pull away soon enough anyway, because it’s not what you once hoped it would be. You feel nothing, no fluttering in your stomach, no tingling in your skin, and it’s at that point that you’re sure he’s become just a friend.  
  
Jake keeps dropping by long after you think it would have been prudent to tell him to go home, stop showing up every day, leave you alone ‘cause he’s embarrassing himself, and where is he even staying that he can afford to be around like this all the time, jesus. You can’t bring yourself to be annoyed by it, though; you’ve always been a loner before, and you probably will be again once you’re over this thing, but for now you are all about having company while you sort out your personal shit-storm of emotion.  
  
You don’t cry anymore after that time on the roof, not even when you really want to, and eventually, you start to feel a tiny bit better. Having a friend around can have that effect, you guess. It also helps that the artificial version of your intelligence is actually sort of being nice to you lately, like he knows you can’t deal with his trolling bullshit right now and sort of understands, which to a degree he might since he’s basically you. You suppose it’s great that you aren’t feeling so much like you’ve been run over by the Break-Up Bus, because even Jane was starting to figure out that something was wrong with you. Roxy figured it out a while ago, and since then she hasn’t stopped pestering you to tell her what the hell has your knickers in an almighty twist. You text her and Jane and tell them the same exact thing, that you’re fine, awesome in fact, and you wish they would get a clue and get off your ass about it.  
  
Then, of course, they start pestering Jake, and realize that he’s been hanging out with you and therefore probably knows “what’s bugging Dirk.” They badger the poor guy with questions, until he comes to you in a flurry of guilt and desperation and pleads for you to “ _do something_ ” so they’ll quit trying to crack him like they’re mutant squirrel women, and he’s the world’s tastiest nut. The resulting hour of you viciously chewing the girls out ends in them both blocking you on Pesterchum, and you feel sort of bad, but not really, because English has been a true pal about all of this, and you aren’t going to let some hurt feelings stop you from defending him. You figure they’ll unblock you later anyways, and you can apologize for being a dick to them at that time.  
  
One day you wake up and the first thing you feel _isn’t_ sad, and for some reason, that kind of scares you. It’s only been a few weeks, and you think it should take longer for a hole the size of the one in your heart to scab over. Then again it’s _you_ , so maybe this is just one more way you’re good at pretending you don’t feel. You don’t want to examine that too deeply, so instead you give Li’l Cal a morning fist-bump, and go about your day.  
  
It’s midafternoon, and you’re currently in the middle of mercilessly slaughtering English in one of your fighting-themed video games. You’re about to clinch the round with a sweet roundhouse—and the world erupts.  
  
At least, that’s what it seems like at first. There’s this explosion outside that sounds like a nuke going off, and the house shakes and stuff comes crashing off of shelves, and the television shorts out along with the rest of the electricity in your house. Jake yelps something about “bloody Armageddon” and “extraterrestrials” and tackles you over the back of the couch, which he then hastily positions into a makeshift barricade, facing the front door.  
  
You glare at him once everything stops quaking around you. You’re pretty banged up from that tackle, and really, a _couch barricade_? Against something capable of making an explosion like that? Yeah, because _that’s_ going to help. “If aliens were going to attack us, they wouldn’t bother with the door. They’d just tear the roof off.”  
  
Jake ignores you and peeks around the edge of the couch, guns ready in his hands. “I don’t hear anything out there,” he mutters. “Stay here; I’ll go check it out.”  
  
“Fuck that and fuck you,” you decide, and get to your feet in spite of his frantic insistence for you to do exactly the opposite of that. Just because you had your weepy moments in the past weeks, that doesn’t make you a princess who can’t go see what blew up for yourself.  
  
Your fingers barely brush the doorknob when someone knocks.  
  
“Dirk!” English hisses. “Don’t answer that! Get back here, I can make the shot through the door!”  
  
You wave him off, and stare at the wooden portal between you and the unknown. Hell, why not? What kind of genocidal space beings would knock so politely? It’s probably safe. Probably. You grab the brass knob, twist, and pull.  
  
You stare.  
  
“Hi,” says one of the not-genocidal space beings. “We sorta parked our asteroid on your lawn. Sorry about that.”  
  
He’s about your age, with pale-blond hair, wearing some kind of weird, red Renaissance pajamas, and carrying a broken sword. He looks at you through his super-dark shades, and slowly, something like recognition starts to creep into his previous lack of an expression. He takes a step back, and it breaks your heart into a million pieces, and into a million more when he opens his mouth and says, very softly, “Bro?”  
  
You thought all the things you felt that were killing you had begun to fade. Now, you know they were just at rest; they flood out of whatever closet you subconsciously shoved them into, and before you can think about things like consequences or whether it’s even okay, you throw your arms around the boy on your doorstep.  
  
He goes rigid, and his grip around that broken sword tightens like he doesn’t know whether to use it or not. You want to die, because it’s not him, he doesn’t _know_ you—and then he tentatively lifts his arms and embraces you back, and you want to die all over again because yes, _fuck_ yes, hell fucking _yes_.  
  
“Hey,” you murmur, and he makes this peculiar noise in the back of his throat, like he’s swallowing back a sob.  
  
“Hey,” he replies, and then a funny little laugh escapes him. “You’re short.”  
  
“Fuck you, _you’re_ short.”  
  
“Fuck _you_ , I’m taller than you by like an entire inch, you midget.”  
  
You laugh, because he’s not your Dave, but he’s still _Dave_ , you haven’t completely lost him, and what you have lost you believe you can find again. Hope is a pretty new thing for you. It feels good.  
  
Someone clears their throat loudly, and you abruptly realize that Dave didn’t crash an asteroid on your lawn all by himself. You blush fiercely and pull away from him, albeit reluctantly.  
  
Standing at the bottom of the porch steps is a boy with gray skin, a fanged overbite that would make a crocodile run bawling for its mother, and—yes, you’re definitely seeing that right—small, rounded horns the colors of candy-corn. Behind him are a number of other gray-skinned beings, as well as some slightly more average-looking human kids.  
  
Overbite glares at you like you’re personally responsible for every bad thing that’s ever happened to him. “Much as I’m sure we all _adore_ witnessing this incredibly awkward, tear-drenched reunion, we’ve been marooned on a flying space rock for approximately three of your human years, and we are all just a little fucking bit anxious to know if we even landed in the right place, so do you think you could hold off being disgusting with Strider for a minute and clue us in as to what fucking year it is and what planet we’re on?”  
  
You tell him, and he makes a bunch of clicking, hissing noises under his breath that you figure must be his native language. Finally, he turns to a human girl with glasses, long, dark hair, and brilliant green eyes (and also a pair of white, dog-like ears perched atop her head, which is super weird, but still not as weird as gray-skinned aliens). “So?” he asks gruffly.  
  
“Hmm,” the girl says, “well, it sounds about right.”  
  
“Oh, good!” the horned boy says, sarcasm dripping from his tone. “That’s just fan-fucking-tastic. I’m so glad you think ‘it sounds about right,’ I guess we can all make camp somewhere and wait for whatever the fuck is supposed to happen now.”  
  
“Relax, Mr. Vantas, we’re in the right place,” says a human girl with a deep hood that hides her eyes, and a small, enigmatic smile. “Besides, I believe you may be ruining this young man’s first impression of otherworldly visitors.”  
  
“Well, I’m so terribly sorry, Lalonde, I’ll proceed straight to the friendly interspecies relations posthaste, shall I? Hello, Earthman, how are you this fine afternoon? I’m Karkat Vantas, the only sane person in this universe. Did you know those pointy sunglasses make you look like a complete douchebag?”  
  
You raise an eyebrow slightly at Dave, and he shrugs. “That’s how it is. You’ll get used to him.”  
  
Huh. Okay then. You loop an arm loosely over his shoulders (he turns a little pink, and you feel all kinds of happy about it), and steer him toward the interior of your home. “Come on, space-cadets, I’ll show you the house.” You figure they aren’t getting any younger—or in some cases, any less cranky—hovering outside on the lawn, and you don’t want the gray-skinned kids standing around when someone eventually comes to investigate the explosion.  
  
Besides, someone has to let English know it’s safe to come out from behind the couch.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


End file.
